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By investing in arts and culture the City invests in Guelph’s economy, quality of life and reputation.
Through various grants and agreements the City aims to achieve shared goals and objectives that are mutually beneficial and offer cultural opportunities that are open and accessible to everyone in the city.
Grants
Through the Community Wellbeing Grant Program, the City invests in organizations whose activities improve the wellbeing of Guelph residents. Each year community not-for-profit organizations are invited to apply for grants to support their operations, events or programs. In 2018, the City granted 24 arts and culture organizations a total of $141,700.
Agreements
Guelph Arts Council
Guelph Arts Council is supported through a community benefit agreement that sets out a series of services and objectives of mutual benefit. Guelph Arts Council is a member-based community service organization, established in 1974, following a City Council resolution directing the mayor to form an arts council for the community to stimulate arts activities. Today the arts council actively fosters community engagement, partnerships, and creative collaboration, and serves as champion of Guelph’s creative community and as resource to artists and culture workers.
Guelph Youth Music Centre
Guelph Youth Music Centre is a not-for-profit organization, established in 1992, dedicated to fostering the development of youth through music and the arts. To support the community-driven initiative with an adequate facility, the City purchased the dramatic post and beam building at 75 Cardigan Street in 1995, and since then has made it available to Guelph Youth Music Centre through a long-term lease agreement for a nominal annual fee. Today, the Centre is used by more than 1,000 children and their families on a weekly basis and directly benefits 4,000 additional area residents annually through community concerts.
Art Gallery of Guelph
Art Gallery of Guelph, established as the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre through an act of provincial parliament in 1978, is supported today by a three-party agreement with Upper Grand District School Board, University of Guelph and the City. The agreement allows for long-term loans of the gallery collection for display in public areas of City Hall and other public facilities. The Art Gallery of Guelph is recognized internationally for its collection of over 9,000 Canadian and international works. Renowned for its exemplary exhibitions and public programming, the gallery is home to the Donald Forster Sculpture Park, the largest contemporary outdoor sculpture collection at a public art gallery in Canada.