The arts funding body is pushing some funding power to the regions. Books editor Claire Mabey walks through the changes and what they might mean.

Arts funding body Creative New Zealand (CNZ) is pushing through the most significant changes in decades. On May 1, its chief executive Gretchen La Roche announced that CNZ’s two new “ambitious” strategies, Toi Ora and Tū Mai Rā – released in April – meant the organisation needed to adopt “a different focus and approach to how we operate”. 

La Roche went on to broadly outline how CNZ would be changing – and those changes are, to put it in plain terms, huge. In a nutshell, CNZ will de-centralise its funds by partnering with regional organisations. 

Hold the phone… what even is Creative New Zealand? 

CNZ is a government agency that supports arts organisations, like arts festivals, theatre and dance companies, literary organisations and arts media, as well as individual artists, like visual artists, writers, theatre makers and musicians through funding. It stays away from film and TV projects because the Film Commission and NZ on Air fund those.

CNZ also has an advocacy team who work to rally support for the arts and support artists’ interests. 

About 25% of CNZ’s funding comes from the government. The government’s contribution has remained static since 2005/2006 with the exception of a $1 million increase in Budget 2019, while contributions from the NZ Lottery Grants Board Te Puna Tahua funding has increased substantially over this period. In fact, CNZ now frames avoiding a reduction in government funding as good news. 

How has CNZ funding worked up until now? 

Arts organisations and individual artists or groups could look for a fund that aligned on the Creative New Zealand website and put in an application through CNZ’s online portal. The funds were contestable, meaning applicants were in competition with one another. All were assessed, but only some were successful. 

Some larger organisations were on multi-year contracts for funding through what were called the Kāhikatea and Tōtara funds, but those contracts will all wind up by December 2026. Arts organisations across the country are now applying to new, multi-tier funds. Results from those funding rounds are due from July and the sector is bracing for a shake-up: there is no way that every organisation is going to be successful. There is simply not enough money to go around.

So, what’s this big change all about then?

“The biggest shift that you’ll see is the establishment of regional partnerships, enabling regions to make decisions about their arts development needs,” La Roche said on May 1.

CNZ is running a registration of interest process to find regional arts organisations to administer funds. CNZ says it’s looking for “trusted organisations, collectives or consortiums deeply connected to their communities, who understand their local creative ecology”. They want these organisations to be “collectives who understand the artists, communities, opportunities and challenges unique to that place, and have a base infrastructure to build on”.

The registration of interest document says that CNZ is looking for one partner in each of 16 “delivery locations” – from Te Tai Tokerau to Whanganui to Southland – and that these partners need to: “lead arts development; administer and distribute regional funding; connect artists, organisations and communities; build partnerships and grow investment; be advocates for arts and ngā toi; and support long-term sustainable arts ecosystems.”

The ROI process closes very soon on May 29, with successful applications notified in June. The partners will be signed up by January 2027, with delivery beginning from July 2027: a swift timeline for such an ambitious change.

Basically, this means CNZ is devolving funding from a central model to a regional one. CNZ told The Spinoff this would make funding “easier” and that “our expectation is that applying for funding will be simple with a quick turnaround time due to scale, streamlined process and decisions being made closer to artists and arts communities”.

So, who could these regional partners be? And how is it actually going to work?

Administering funds is not a simple process. It’s admin-heavy work that requires time, staff and streamlined processes to ensure fairness and equity. It could be a challenge to find arts organisations in all 16 locations that have both the art-form neutrality and capacity to take on that large list of CNZ requirements. 

CNZ told The Spinoff that while the new direction will add partners, it wants to avoid adding layers of bureaucracy. “Most regional partners will build on infrastructure, relationships and capability that already exists in their communities. We will also provide support in a variety of ways to enable this, including centralised tools and systems.”

The Spinoff asked CNZ how, under a model with so many partners, will consistency be maintained. We also asked how Māori would be represented and how will all art forms be equally championed? 

CNZ said regional partners would need to deliver funding opportunities “in line with CNZ’s current practice” and that “there will be clear expectations around transparency, fairness, accountability and good decision-making. At the same time, CNZ will continue to hold the national overview and support regional partners as an active national network that shares ideas, insight and momentum.”

Could councils be regional partners?

There’s no stipulation that councils are ineligible to apply to be a regional partner, but they don’t seem to fit the description of the kind of organisation that CNZ is looking for. For example, Wellington City Council is currently proposing a 5 % cut to its arts budget which would seem to negate the CNZ requirement for its regional partners to advocate for the arts and long-term sustainability. 

The bigger question is around what councils may or may not do with their own arts funding if regional partners are going to be channeling CNZ money. CNZ told The Spinoff that it doesn’t expect councils to reduce their arts funding once the regional partnership model starts up. “Currently we have limited levers to actively encourage other stakeholders to maintain and grow their investment in the arts and culture within their regions. We believe that offering a confirmed multi-year commitment of investment to a region enables us to approach key stakeholder conversations in a different way.

“Regional partners will be supported to focus on growing investment and building stronger regional relationships, including with councils, iwi, philanthropy and business.”

So, does CNZ have more money to support this change? 

Lol. No. There’s not even additional funding to set up the regional partners with the staffing they’ll inevitably need to do all the new work. 

It is interesting that this radical change to the model is happening alongside a fresh lot of planned cuts to the public sector. CNZ hasn’t confirmed whether it will cut staff as a result of the new devolved model, but it did say that as “part of changing the way we do things and in line with our new strategic direction, CNZ is reviewing its operating model to best deliver value and outcomes to artists and the sector. We will share more information over the coming months about our new ways of working”. 

What will CNZ be doing if it’s not administering funding? 

CNZ will be focussing on “some targeted national and international funding and support opportunities”. There will be more information on this in the next few months “as we continue to develop our strategic areas of focus and deliver our regional partnerships programme”. CNZ will also be trying to find more money for the arts. “We want to grow investment into arts and creativity from multiple places, including local and central government, philanthropy, business partnerships, iwi, trusts, central government relationships and cross-sector collaboration”.  

Exactly how it is going to do this is not yet clear because it says it doesn’t “intend to pursue local philanthropic or corporate sponsorship or to replicate work being done in these spaces already by others”. 

So, is this new decentralised funding model a good thing or not?

It’s too early to say, especially without more detail. The devil lives there, after all. On the one hand, empowering communities sounds great, but when arts communities are already lean and lacking in robust infrastructure it’s hard to see who these partners could be. It’s also not like arts organisations aren’t already out there trying to present their value and attract investment. 

On the other hand, if, through this new model, CNZ can find a way to ultimately increase the level of arts investment, then that will be a positive shift. The first step will be finding out who the 16 regional partners are going to be.