Development Fund for Arts Organisations and Groups

Before you apply

Worth knowing the odds before you decide where to spend your effort, because they vary enormously across Creative New Zealand funds.

In the 2026 round of this fund, the Ngā toi Māori pool supported 19 grants from 24 applicants — $188,000 offered against $238,000 requested. Almost everyone who applied got something, and most got close to what they asked for.

Compare that with the 2026 Creative Fellowship Fund, where the Ngā toi Māori pool offered 6 fellowships from 64 applicants, $225,000 against $2.6 million requested. Both are Creative New Zealand, both are the Ngā toi Māori pool, and one is roughly eight times easier to get.

That is not a reason to avoid the fellowships. It is a reason to know which fight you are picking, and to consider whether your kaupapa fits a fund where the field is thinner.

This fund is for organisations and groups. The Development Fund for Artists and Practitioners is the individual equivalent and is listed here.

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.