Call for applications: COVID-19 fund for cultural organisations

Initiated by the African Cultural Fund (ACF), SOFACO is designed to help creators and creative enterprises in Africa to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. The funding is aimed at African cultural organisations.

The first call was announced in May and elapsed in June. In August, ACF named 120 artists and art practitioners as the recipients of the funding. 

SOFACO seeks to support activities and projects for the creation, production and dissemination of works, and capacity building in the following fields:

• Music.
• Dance.
• Theatre.
• Storytelling.
• Visual arts (traditional plastic arts, photography, digital art, design, fashion and decorative arts, as well as all pre-production, production, post-production, dissemination and distribution activities in the film and audio-visual disciplines).

The call covers all African countries and projects can be submitted in the following categories:

Category 1: Professional grants 

The professional grant is a subsidy to help a cultural organisation cover all or part of its operating expenses that it cannot temporarily face, due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Category 2: Requests for assistance to creation

Assistance to creation has to do with any creative or artistic innovation project adapted to the context of COVID-19 in Africa.

Eligibility

To be eligible, applicants must:

• Be an artistic, cultural organisation operating in Africa, with at least five years of experience (proof of legal existence to be provided).
• Submit a document showing the artistic career, process and an overview of the artistic works of the organisation (three pages max).
• Submit a resume of the head of the organisation.
• Submit a letter of recommendation from at least one recognised reference person in the field of competency of the organisation (pointing out the need and urgency to provide financial support to the organisation).

Selection criteria

Applicants will be selected based on:

• Originality/innovation/creativity of the project or concept.
• Technical quality of the application.
• Financial quality of the project.
• The relevance to the current African or regional context and the COVID-19 context (situation of vulnerability of the cultural organisation about the health crisis).

Funding

SOFACO grants under this call will not exceed an amount of $5 000 per cultural organisation. The funding covers a period between a minimum of four months and a maximum of six months.

The fund will sign a grant agreement with the beneficiary cultural organisation. The agreement will include information on the activities to be carried out, the grant amount, the disbursement schedule, and the delivery of implementation reports.

Funding to the selected projects will be disbursed in two instalments:

• 80% of the grant, upon signing the grant agreement.
• 20% of the grant, at mid-term and upon submission and approval of the narrative and interim financial reports.

How to apply

Interested applicants must:

• Complete an online funding application form here.

The application deadline is 15 October (2am CAT).

Note: 

• Applications can be submitted in English or French.
• Incomplete applications will not be considered.
• The applicant will receive an automatic acknowledgement email once the application has been received.

Successful applicants will be notified by 15 December.

The results will be published on the African Cultural Fund official website.

View the original call here.