SmartGrant is a small female-led company, the brainchild of MaryAnn Anderson (Little Dog Creative Consulting), who has worked as an arts administrator in (Vancouver) BC since 1989, and a grant writer and consultant since 2005.

Launched in 2025 after almost a year of development, SmartGrant reflects her desire to create an interactive grant database specifically for the BC/Canadian arts community – one that reflects the kind of grant sourcing & strategizing that she has undertaken for clients for over 20 years.

SmartGrant is a one-stop database of funding opportunities (grants, sponsorship, donation or in-kind, etc.) available to arts and culture organizations and artists living and working in BC. It provides users with key information about each funding program including: purpose, who and what is eligible, funding amounts available, deadlines, contact information, how to apply, and so much more. SmartGrant includes over 670 funding program records (and counting!) that are available from public arts funding agencies, foundations, and corporations.

SmartGrant has been built on a simple premise – to help users find grants that match their unique eligibility and their specific project, event or activity.

We have created an automated eligibility matching capability, coupled with a comprehensive search tool that translates complex funder guidelines into an easy-to-use search tool – one that analyzes and distills hundreds of arts grant programs for you. SmartGrant then gives you a list of available opportunities – a shortcut to an excessive amount of funder guidelines, all available in one place.

For more information about how SmartGrant works and its unique features, check out our “How It Works” page.

SmartGrant provides information on available grant programs, specifically targeted to both individuals and organizations in the arts & cultural community, and who are based in, or serve, the province of British Columbia. (Note: While SmartGrant is currently tailored for British Columbia, it includes many funding programs that are available Canada-wide)

Please visit the Individual or Organization pages, for more information on the many types of users that SmartGrant serves. And if you have any questions about whether the platform is right for you, please feel free to reach out, we’d be happy to answer your questions.

We source all of our grant record information directly from each funder’s publicly posted guidelines, available on their websites. We make every effort to ensure accuracy to ensure completeness in all our data, and will sometimes reach out to funders directly where we may have questions about their published information.

Information regarding each program’s Eligibility and Funding Focus reflects our team’s best interpretation of those materials – and as a result, they may not reflect the Funder’s full intentions for their program. Given that, we always advise users to verify program information directly with the funding agency.

Please review our Terms of Use.

Our team works every day to ensure the grant records are maintained and updated.

We rely on our own internal tracking system, which prompts us when programs are due to be updated; and we review hundreds of funders’ newsletters to ensure we receive the latest funding information as soon as they are released.

Subscribers can also verify the timing of our grant record update, near the top of each record. And while we work hard to stay on top of the latest program updates, there is always room for improvement. If you see a record that could use some attention, we’d be happy if you let us know!

From the smartgrant.ca homepage, you can choose to sign up for either an Individual account or an Organization account. You can learn more about either type by selecting it on the homepage. When you are ready, click Get Started, and you will be prompted to fill out your information before creating an account.

Alternatively, you can click on Get Started at the top right-hand side of the website at any time to start an Individual Account creation. To switch to an Organization Account creation, simply change it at the top of the form.

SmartGrant has been designed with affordability as a key value, and is a principle we take to heart. We have set our subscription rates with a recognition of the financial realities of artists and arts organizations within our sector.

With that in mind, we have opted to not offer free trials for our product – in the hope that potential subscribers will recognize the value in what SmartGrant can offer them & support the ongoing maintenance and building of the data, through their paid subscription.

Want to know more about how SmartGrant works and its unique features? Check out our “How it Works” page.

Also, be sure to subscribe to our free newsletter, for information on upcoming Zoom sessions, where we will demo the product & answer all your questions.

SmartGrant has been designed with affordability as a key value, and is a principle we take to heart. We have set our subscription rates with a recognition of the financial realities of artists and arts organizations within our sector.

For organizational users, we have set our subscription rates based on your total annual operating budget. This pricing structure has been patterned after common industry member organizations and is designed to ensure equitable access, based on each organization’s financial means.

Should your organization’s budget level change in future years, we ask that you choose the appropriate membership category that reflects that, when you renew with us for another year.

Subscription Terms: all SmartGrant subscriptions are 12 months in length (annual). Subscribers will receive a reminder prior to the expiration date. For more details on our subscription renewal process/policy, please see our Terms of Use.

At the current time, SmartGrant has been created to serve British Columbia-based artists and arts organizations – although the database includes grant programs that are available to applicants from across Canada.

We have plans for future expansion of SmartGrant into other provinces – sign up for our newsletter to stay informed of future developments.

SmartGrant uses Stripe to accept and manage online payments for subscriptions.

Stripe allows payments via major credit cards and digital wallets (like Apple Pay, Google Pay), and is one of most widely trusted online payment platforms that offers strong security features.

You may cancel your subscription at any time by simply contacting us. However, we are not able to provide refunds for use of our service.

To reset your password, simply select the login option from the top right-hand side of the page and click Forgot Password. Enter the username or email you used to register and follow the instructions to reset.

You can update or change your account information or the specifics of your user profile at any time. Both can be accessed from your “Dashboard” menu (upper right hand side) after you log in.

Absolutely, please do! The SmartGrant database is structured to search grants applicable to either Organizations or Individuals (based on your profile). You are welcome to sign up as both an Organization or an Individual – however, this requires separate registration using different emails to create each account.

Some (community-based) funding programs allow for applicants to be based outside of that community, provided that they can demonstrate a programming impact/benefit to their residents. For that reason, you are encouraged to select any/all communities that reflect your organization’s primary location(s) for your programming.

In addition, we always recommend that you consult each community’s eligibility guidelines to ensure your programming meets their specific requirements.

If you’re an Individual subscriber: Many funding programs are specific to individuals who experience systemic barriers, and/or identify as belonging to specific Equity-deserving communities. We encourage you to provide any applicable self-identification options, which will allow SmartGrant to match you to specific funding opportunities.

Note: if you do not identify as such, but have a project, event or activity that serves an Equity community, please select those applicable categories in the SmartGrant Search “funding focus” section.

If you’re an Organizational subscriber: Many funding programs are specific to organizations/groups who identify as based in and serving* Equity-deserving communities.

If this applies to your organization, we encourage you to select any applicable self-identification options, which will allow SmartGrant to select funding programs that match those specific eligibility categories.

Note: organizations who do not identify here, but who may have a project or activity that serves an Equity community, should select applicable categories in the SmartGrant Search “funding focus” section.

*This is generally defined as having a mandate and programming that is explicitly centered in and reflective of an Equity-deserving community and where the board, staff, artists, audience, collaborators, and supporters include a significant representation of that community.

The “SmartGrant Search” page is where you can search our grant database based on a variety of parameters – including funder name, deadline date, and a range of “Funding Focus” categories – all of which can be applied independently or in combination.

Built into this grant search function is an automatic ‘matching’ for only those programs that match your specific eligibility profile – eliminating the need to re-enter that every time you conduct a search.

Want to know more? Check out our “How It Works” page.

Yes! You can save any search you conduct on the site, and name them any way you want, to meet your own needs. For any saved search, SmartGrant will then automatically find matches for any new program records entered into the database that match your specific eligibility and funding focus interests.

When you complete your grant search, you can view any of the grant record results individually. SmartGrant also has a unique feature that allows you to save any record to your own personalized “Grant Planner”.

To add a grant to your Planner, click “View” to go to the full Record, scroll to the Application Deadlines section, select your preferred deadline(s), and click on “Add to Grant Planner”.

Once you’ve saved a grant record to your Planner, it is then completely customizable for your individual needs. Simply click on the “edit” option, and you can add specific details for each record that allows you detailed tracking capabilities – things like: your application submission date, amount applied for, grant status, and your grant reporting dates. You can even add your own personalized notes or comments to each record.

And you’re welcome to create as many Planners as you want or need.

SmartGrant was created from our work with artists and organizations like you – from two decades of interpreting grant programs, and helping clients find suitable funding sources. The strength of the database comes from its users – which means, we definitely want to hear from you – please reach out with suggestions for funder sources, ways to improve the site’s usability, or just to chat – we are here, and would love to hear from you!

At SmartGrant we are always on the lookout for new grant and funding opportunities to add to our ever-growing database. We also regularly provide more in-depth features on grant opportunities that may interest you. Check out our latest “News” page, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky or LinkedIn.

You can contact us by phone at: 604-840-1213 or by email: support@smartgrant.ca

SmartGrant is committed to never sharing your personal information or search data with any third party. You can learn more about our Privacy Policy here.

Your email program or provider might be blocking emails from SmartGrant. To ensure it’s not being filtered out, check your junk or spam folder and review your email settings.

Every email program is a little different, but most services with spam or junk folders make it easy for users to mark certain email addresses as safe, ensuring those messages go straight to the main inbox.

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