An important part of gaining funding is for an organization to have critical financial reports and statistics on hand. However, depending on the funding agency (ie. federal vs. provincial), different sets of data are needed to meet the application requirements. This discrepency in details has left many organizations finding the public funding process to be overly complex and inconsistent.
Launching in late 2008, CADAC's (Canadian Arts Data/ Données sur les arts au Canada) online database will allow organizations to submit one set of financial and statistical information for funding grants. The database will be hosted by the Canada Council.
The CADAC benefits include:
- Arts organizations will have access to reports and historical data on their own organizations, as well as reports that compare their data to all the data in CADAC for similar organizations – by size, region or discipline.
- Financial and statistical information will be secure. Only the arts funders will have access to the information provided by arts organizations applying to their programs.
- Arts funders and arts organizations will be able to use the aggregate data to identify trends and monitor the overall health of the arts sector.