Good Practice Guidelines Investing in Ngā Toi - Creativity, Culture and the Arts

You can read the full report here.

These good practice guidelines were developed to support the decision-making of arts and culture sector funders and those looking to invest in the sector. They outline how creativity, culture and the arts contribute to our social, cultural, economic and environmental wellbeing, and how funders can effectively invest in the arts and culture sector to achieve their strategic outcomes.

As more funders develop strategies that prioritise social and wellbeing impacts, challenges are created for both arts organisations, which need to demonstrate how they can fit with these funding strategies, and funders who wish to identify how the arts can help them achieve wellbeing outcomes. 

By understanding how the arts achieve a wide range of outcomes for individuals, families, whānau and the wider community, funders will see how the work of artists, creatives and arts organisations align with their funding strategies.

Beyond the intrinsic value of arts and culture, the range of outcomes that can be achieved by the arts can be described across four domains: cultural, environmental, social and health, and economic.

The term ‘ngā toi’ encompasses cultures, creativity and art; and to better reflect the way that art, creativity, language and cultural knowledge are understood as an integrated whole that isn’t always captured by the more Western framing of ‘art’.

Photo credit: Auckland Diwali Festival 2019 Auckland Unlimited