COVID-19 VIC: Business, Non-Profits, Individuals – Creative Victoria Building Audiences Fund

This program aims to provide one-off support for new marketing projects which have the potential to build and re-establish audiences following the sector closure in 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The program will prioritise support for:
- Victorian First Peoples creative practitioners or micro organisations/businesses
- Deaf and disabled creative practitioners and arts workers or disability-led micro businesses/organisations
- Regionally based creative practitioners and organisations

Grants between $2,000 and $20,000 are available.

A total funding pool of $100,000 is available.

Eligible applicants include:
- Independent professional creatives/artists and partnerships working in the creative industries, including sectors such as arts, music, design, screen and digital games.
- Micro to medium sized organisations (less than 10 FTE staff) within the creative industries.
- Regionally based creative industries organisations owned and operated by local governments.

Eligible activities include new marketing projects and smart thinking that will:
- Reach new audiences.
- Find new pathways to reach audiences.
- Reengage audiences in the newly emerged environment/market.
- Find new ways to increase or broaden the audiences for your product, work or organisation.
- Diversify and/or increase earned revenue streams.

The main assessment criteria include:
- Marketing idea (20%)
- Marketing effect (30%)
- Income and/or revenue generation (30%)
- Viability (20%)

Please refer to the Guidelines for the complete list of the assessment criteria.

The following are ineligible for funding:
- Business as usual marketing activity including website development and maintenance, CRM systems, and core operational marketing staff wages.
- Existing marketing activity.
- The development or presentation of artworks or products.
- Ideas that are principally focused on content or product creation.
- Business start-up costs, capital purchases or recurrent administrative, infrastructure and other organisational costs not directly associated with the project/program.
- 2020 recipients of Innovation in Marketing Fund grants or those who have an active (not yet acquitted) grant from a previous round of the Innovation in Marketing Fund.
- State owned agencies or organisations receiving multi-year funding (including Regional Partnerships funding) through Creative Victoria.
- Amateur or hobby pursuits.