Fund details
Closed: Thursday 13 March 2025
Contact: Funding Team: Funding@wcc.govt.nz
Value: $300,000 in 2024-2025. See past allocations (248KB PDF)
About this fund
The Living Wage for Events Fund was originally established for three years as part of the Long-term Plan (2021-31) to support non-Council event organisers to apply for funding to enable them to deliver events that provide the living wage for participating artists, staff and contractors. The fund was extended for an additional 12 months as part of the 2024-34 Long Term Plan, during which time options would be reviewed for support for artists and events.
Applicants must be a legal entity, those groups or organisations that are not can apply using an umbrella agreement with another organisation, Applications are made through our online funding portal. See the funding calendar for closing and decision dates.
Investment criteria
Initiatives must be designed to achieve at least one of the following aims of the fund;
Provide support for events being delivered in Wellington City to provide living wage for;
- staff and contractors who are directly employed to deliver, produce and perform at the event/s
- participating artists and performers.
Please note that applicants will need to provide detailed information as part of the application to demonstrate how they will utilise funding to address pay of staff and contractors who would not be paid at living wage rates.
If you are applying to this fund and the Arts and Culture fund for the same event, please attach the same project budget to each application. If you want to discuss your applications further, please contact the funding team (funding@wcc.govt.nz).
Eligibility criteria
To be eligible to apply to this fund, applicants must:
- be a legal entity (or community group using an umbrella), this includes Māori entities, schools, social enterprises or businesses
- have an event that is taking place in Wellington City and mainly benefits the people of Wellington.
Priorities
We will prioritise support for events that can demonstrate how they will utilise funding to support the living wage. Applicants must provide supporting information within the application which will need to align with reporting after the event.
We will prioritise support for events that support one or more outcomes of the Council's Events Policy, these events outcomes are:
- Events that contribute and celebrates the arts
- Events that partner with mana whenua to develop, promote and deliver cultural events that profile mana whenua
- Events that support communities in creating their distinctive character
- Strive to be an environmentally friendly event and sustainable in the long term
- Events that promote inclusive, tolerant and strong communities.
The fund will not cover events where the primary purpose is to promote religious ministry or political objectives or for Council events, including those run by Council Controlled Organisations.
Administration
Applications are reviewed and moderated by a cross-Council panel of subject matter experts including staff from our Creative Capital team.
Decision making for the fund is delegated to the Pītau Pūmanawa, Grants Subcommittee, funding rounds will align with existing Council funding rounds, until funds are fully allocated. For events that are scheduled outside our scheduled closing dates and Pītau Pūmanawa meetings please contact the funding team directly, Council agreed when the fund was established to an option of approving grants via Committee and Subcommittee Chairs.
First-time applicants
Read the information on this page, then register and apply online through our funding portal: Funding Portal - Apply online
Apply for the fund
You can check your application status if you've already applied for funding. If you receive an error message when trying to access the funding portal on a mobile device, please use these instructions or contact the Funding Team.
Go to Funding Portal