Earlier this year, the Edmonton Heritage Council set out to complete a full review of our Heritage Community Investment Program. We wanted to make sure that the grants were responsive to the needs of the organizations that we support and our city. We also wanted to make sure that the community had an opportunity to share their thoughts on the program’s impact in sharing our collective story.

The grants review started in April with a half-day session for our staff to reflect on some of the challenges and possibilities for improvement. This lead to broader consultation over the past few months as we collected information through surveys, in-person interviews, and focus groups from a broad range of perspectives and voices. We heard from our members, past grant recipients and jury members, potential grant applicants, and from the general public.

Overall, we heard that our investment program is an important way for individuals and organizations to help animate the history of Edmonton and reflect our heritage back to Edmontonians. We also heard that the program is working well for those who are accessing the grants and is vital to their ability to continuing to create great work. But there are always ways to improve and broaden the reach of our grants program. Because of this feedback, we will be focusing on making our grants more welcoming and inclusive for all that could be benefiting from the investment program.

Over the coming months, the Edmonton Heritage Council will be working to implement many of the recommendations that came out of our grants review. Some of the internal administrative changes will be a part of the way we complete the 2017 grant application and evaluation process and more changes will be coming in the New Year. We will be continuing to collect your feedback and are open to hearing more of your thoughts and suggestions. We are focused on making sure that our funding is accessible and inclusive for everyone in Edmonton that is carrying out heritage work. We want to continue uniting Edmontonians to make heritage an indispensable part of community and civic life and believe that the Heritage Community Investment Program is a critical part of that.

Have any questions? Concerns? Suggestions? Don’t hesitate to reach out to grants@edmontonheritage.ca