Canada Council Digital Strategy Fund

Launched in 2017, the Canada Council's Digital Strategy Fund encourages an overall approach that helps support Canadian artists, groups and arts organizations in understanding the digital world, engaging with it, and responding to the cultural and social changes it produces. The Fund supports initiatives that aim at developing a user-centred culture of innovation, a rethinking of organizational culture, work procedures and leadership styles, and the adoption and deployment of available technological solutions.

The Canada Council encourages initiatives that embody the values and principles of both the digital world and the Digital Strategy Fund, namely:
- a focus on collaboration, partnership and networking;
- open-mindedness, and willingness to share knowledge, results, ideas and lessons learned;
- experimentation, risk-taking and iterative development.

The fund includes three regular components:
a) Digital Literacy and Intelligence: Project grants to support the arts sector in building digital knowledge, skills and capacity. It supports Canadian artists, groups and arts organizations in their efforts to respond more effectively to the challenges, issues and opportunities of the digital era, develop and broaden their strategic digital thinking, and strengthen their ability to translate that thinking into sustainable, concrete actions.
b) Public Access to the Arts and Citizen Engagement: Project grants to support Canadian artists, groups and arts organizations to improve the public's access, engagement and participation in the arts through digital means. It supports innovative digital initiatives that enhance the artistic experience of diverse publics, encourage the participation and engagement of citizens with the art, and increase discoverability and access to the works of Canadian artists, both at home and abroad.
c) Transformation of Organizational Models: Project grants to support the exploration, development, implementation or optimization of existing digital initiatives in order to help arts organizations transform the way they work in order to address challenges, seize opportunities and adapt to a networked and connected environment.

In 2019, the Council launched the Creation Accelerator, a pilot to support the development, creation and sharing of original digital content for potential distribution on CBC/Radio-Canada's digital platforms