The NAC grants department administers more than 20 financial assistance schemes, scholarships & bursaries to support different areas pertaining to the arts. General overviews of grant schemes and scholarships & bursaries are available on the web site. The objective of each scheme is clearly stated. Please select the scheme that is most relevant to the nature of your project and objective.

The Council provides grants for projects in the following areas:

Visual Arts, Photo Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre & Drama, Literary Arts

NAC has started the New Media Arts Fund, which supports the development and creation of artistic work that explores or experiments with new forms of expressions, including the cross-fertilisation of new technologies and other disciplines with conventional art forms.

Financial support for film projects and film studies is looked after by the Singapore Film Commission. For more information, please contact the Singapore Film Commission Secretariat, 140 Hill Street #05-01, MICA Building, Singapore 179369. Tel: (65) 6837 9891 Fax: (65) 6837 9890 or visit their web site at www.sfc.org.sg.

For arts groups:
Applicants must be local registered, non-profit distributing organisations engaged in arts practice either in visual arts, photography, dance, theatre, music or literature.

For informal groups:
Informal groups of individual artists may apply for funding, but must nominate either an individual or a legally constituted organisation to take legal and financial responsibility for administering the grant.

For individuals:
Applicants should be recognised by their peers as practicing artists and must be Singaporeans or Permanent Residents. Priority may be given to full-time practitioners. Scholarships & bursaries have different criteria for eligibility. Detailed information is available from the Scholarships & Bursaries page.

Any individual or organisation can apply for any grant, as long as they meet the eligibility requirements of the grants.

Yes. Given the Council's limited budget, there are many activities that are beyond the scope of the Council's funding, regardless of their merit:

* Student groups formed under the auspices of schools and tertiary institutions.

* Projects or activities that do not have a clearly defined arts component.

* Projects or activities which have commenced prior to the application.

* Projects or activities that do not involve practising Singaporean artists.

* Major capital expenditure including the refurbishment of buildings, the purchase of office equipment & musical instruments (except for projects under the NAC Arts Housing Scheme).

* Academic activity including administration costs for academic conferences and the development of teaching and resources specifically for academic courses.

* Projects which have already received funding from other NAC departments (Please check with officers for more details).
* Costs of organising fundraising events for other charitable organisations.

* Costs of organising small scale competitions with limited outreach.

Different schemes require different sets of supporting materials. For details on the supporting materials needed, please refer to the first page of the application forms for each scheme, where the information is published under "Application Procedures".

For Scholarships & Bursaries, please refer to the application form for details.

There are no restrictions on the number of times you can apply for a grant, but there is a limit to the number of times an applicant can be awarded the same grant per financial year.

For most grants, there are fixed application windows. Application windows are indicated on the grant information webpages.

All applications are assessed according to the published criteria for each scheme.

Applications will be assessed on specified assessment criteria by NAC officers and/or specialist panels drawn from NAC's arts resource panel. Panel members comprise experts and arts practitioners from across the art forms.

Applicants will generally be notified of the outcome of their applications within 2 months from the postmarked dates of the application. Scholarship & bursary applicants will only be notified in August.

Successful applicants must fulfill the following general conditions:

1. The Council's support should be acknowledged on all publicity materials.

2. NAC should be informed of any changes to the proposed activity or programme.

3. Submit the Feedback Form or evaluation report together with a certified statement of accounts within 2 months from the end of the event. (Applicants will NOT be considered for future grant applications if these documents are not received).

Please note that specific conditions do apply to some schemes. Please see Application Procedures for Grants and Scholarships, and Grants Information Guide for details.