Successful applications

If your application is successful, you will receive an email telling you a grant has been offered and explaining the next steps. You will need to sign a contract, known as a grant agreement, which outlines the conditions of funding, how you will be paid and your grant reporting requirements.

Contracts or grant agreements

If your application is successful, a grant agreement will be attached to the contracts section of your online account in our application management system;

You must agree and accept the conditions of this grant agreement, which represents our contract with you. Payment of a grant will not be made until the grant conditions have been agreed and accepted by all the relevant parties.

You should not start a project that depends on a grant until all relevant parties have agreed and accepted the grant conditions and we have evidence of this acceptance on file.

Standard grant conditions require you to:

• seek approval before making a change to a funded project (for example, changes in the activity budget; changes to key creative personnel; or changes to start or end dates)
• respond to our requests for information about the project or grant
• satisfactorily account for how the grant is spent (if you do not, you will be required to return all the money which you cannot satisfactorily account for)
• comply with all relevant Australian laws
• acknowledge our support in all promotional material associated with the project, including use of the Creative Australia logo and a standard text of acknowledgement
• provide artistic and financial acquittal reports at the end of the project
• return any unspent grant funds at the completion of your project or on notice from us to return such unspent funds.

Grant agreements must be signed by a legal entity – either a legally constituted organisation or an individual. For unincorporated groups, see our advice on administered grants.

All individual or organisation grant applicants based in Australia must have an ABN. Individual applicants without an ABN may have their grant administered by an individual or organisation with an ABN. Organisations operating outside of Australia do not need an ABN to apply. Individuals based outside of Australia may not need an ABN to apply, depending on their circumstances (please check with your accountant or tax advisor).

The name of the applicant must match the name of the ABN and the name of the bank account we pay the funds into. There are no exceptions to this rule. If applicants cannot provide an ABN and bank account that are in the same name as the applicant’s name, they will need to nominate an administrator for their grant.

If you are unable to provide an active ABN and bank account that matches the name of the applicant, you must nominate an administrator. The name of the administrator must match the name of the ABN and bank account into which we pay the funds if the application is successful.

Grant payments

When you apply, you will be asked to provide an active Australian Business Number or ‘ABN’. The ABN you provide must match the name of the applicant (or the administering body, if you have nominated one), and the name of the bank account we pay the grant into.

When you accept your grant agreement, you will be asked to confirm the details of the bank account you wish the grant to be paid into. 

It is important to ensure your bank account details are accurate when you accept your grant agreement. Please do not update or delete your bank account details until after your payment has been received. If your bank account details or ABN status changes after you have accepted the grant, inform Artists Services immediately.

We will pay the grant directly into your nominated bank account within two weeks. You do not need to send us an invoice. 

For more information, please read payment processes for grant recipients and suppliers.

Grant reports or acquitting your grant

When you have completed your project, you must acquit your grant by providing a grant report. The grant report provides detail on your funded activities and how the funding was spent.

Please read your funding agreement to check details of the grant acquittal material you should provide.

The grant report is where you tell us:

• how you spent your grant
• what the artistic outcomes of your funded activity were.

If you do not provide a satisfactory grant report, we will not make any further payments that may be due to you, and you will not be eligible to apply for further grants. We may also ask you to pay back all or part of the funding provided to you.

We use grant reports to fulfil obligations of accountability to the Australian Government. They are also essential to the development work of Creative Australia. These reports help us evaluate the achievements of funded activities, monitor the effectiveness of grant categories and ensure our policy development is consistent with the experience of artists in the field.

Reporting for multi-year funded organisations

Organisations that receive multi-year funding are required to submit financial, statistical, and artistic reporting on an annual basis.

All reporting is submitted online via our arts organisations reporting system.

If you are unsure which information needs to go into your annual report please get in touch. 

For more information, please see multi-year investment.