Arts Organisations and Groups Fund

Multi-year funding towards the artistic and operational costs of arts organisations and groups. Applications can cover one, two or three calendar years.

AotearoaToiAhureaHapori

Closes: Annual round — the 2026 round for tiers 1-2 opened 2 March, closed 28 May 2026, for fund periods starting 1 January 2027. Tiers 3-4 needed an earlier expression of interest by 13 March 2026
Who can apply: New Zealand arts organisations and groups, including those in the Toi Tōtara Haemata and Toi Uru Kahikatea programmes. Individual artists and territorial authorities cannot apply. Committees or sub-groups where governance sits centrally must apply through the head organisation. To request more than $125,000 a year, average annual turnover must exceed $250,000 over the past two years.
Amount: Tiered by turnover: Tier 1 up to $50,000/year, Tier 2 up to $125,000/year, Tier 3 up to $500,000/year, Tier 4 over $500,000/year. Offers are generally no more than 70 percent of average annual turnover over the last two financial years
Funding route: Grant
Applicants: Iwi & Māori organisations, Community groups

Before you apply

Organisations that accepted 2027 funding in the 2025 round cannot apply in 2026.

The pool you choose decides who reads your application. Creative New Zealand runs three funding pools across most of its funds — Ngā toi Māori, Pacific arts, and General arts. You may be eligible for more than one but you can only pick one per application.

Choose Ngā toi Māori and your application is assessed by Māori artists and practitioners with experience in ngā toi Māori, and the funding decisions are made by Creative New Zealand’s Ngā Toi Māori kaimahi. Choose General arts and it goes to a general panel. Same fund, same money, different people reading it.

To use the Ngā toi Māori pool as an individual you must be tangata whenua Māori, or the project must be managed or directed by Māori. An organisation, group or collective must be Māori-led, and where it applies on behalf of an individual, that person must also be Māori.

Ngā toi Māori is defined broadly. Creative New Zealand include taonga puoro, tarai waka, kaupapa waka, whakairo, raranga, tāniko, kākahu, tukutuku, kōwhaiwhai, tā moko, kapa haka, mōteatea, waiata ā-ringa, waiata tawhito, poi, waiata haka, pao, mau rākau, whaikōrero, karanga, whakapapa recitation, te reo me ōna tikanga, kōrero paki, pakiwaitara, karetao and whare tapere — and the work of Māori artists across all forms of contemporary practice. You do not have to be doing customary arts to use this pool.

Official source →

Checked 16 September 2026

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