Jump to content
Latest Updates
Enhanced Arts and Culture Resilience Package announced by Minister MCCY at Budget 2021
On 8 March 2021, Minister Edwin Tong announced a new $20M enhancement to the Arts and Culture Resilience Package (ACRP) to enable continued support for arts groups and artists, as live performances and other cultural activities gradually resume, bringing the total Covid-19 support for arts and culture sector to $75M.
The enhancement will cover the following new grants and extensions to existing schemes:
- [New] Self-Employed Person (SEP) Grant for arts and culture freelancers to collaborate on projects
Arts and culture freelancers stand to benefit from a new SEP Grant (up to $50,000 per project). This project-based support will complement other broad-based support measures, such as the COVID-19 Recovery Grant.
-
[New] Business Transformation Fund (BTF)
The BTF aims to support the transformation of arts and culture organisations to be more efficient and sustainable. There are two tracks to this Fund:
Track 1: Business Transformation Grant
A new Business Transformation Grant (BTG) will be introduced to support grounds-up interests by arts organisations to support both the digital and non-digital aspects of business transformation. The BTG also encourages arts and culture organisations to come together to address common pain points and/or co-create solutions. The BTG will provide a grant quantum of up to $30,000 per project for company-specific business transformation efforts, and up to $200,000 per project for co-solutioning projects involving multiple arts organisations, or for projects with potential for wider industry spin-offs.
Track 2: Commissions and Partnerships
MCCY and NAC will also proactively commission or work with suitable partners to co-create business transformation solutions to be piloted for the arts and culture sector.
In the coming weeks, NAC will be engaging arts and culture stakeholders on their views to scope both the SEP Grant and the BTG, and ensure that the grants are able to meet the needs of the sector. NAC aims to launch both grants by June 2021. More details on the engagements and timeline will be shared on NAC’s website in due course.
-
Extension of the ACRP Operating Grant
To help key organisations in the arts and related sectors defray their operating costs, a second tranche of the ACRP Operating Grant will be introduced. As more economic activities have resumed, a second tranche of the ACRP Operating Grant of $35,000 per organisation will be provided, following the first tranche of $50,000 or $75,000.
The same eligibility criteria for the existing ACRP Operating Grant as the first tranche will apply. NAC and the co-administering agencies (the National Heritage Board and DesignSingapore Council) will reach out directly to eligible organisations to notify them about the second tranche of the Operating Grant in March 2021.
For more information, please click here.
-
Extension of the venue hire subsidy
MCCY will extend the 80% venue hire subsidy for another 3 months (i.e., April to June 2021). Any extension beyond June will be reviewed subsequently, taking into account the prevailing national situation.
In addition to venues that were announced previously, MCCY will expand the subsidy to more venues. Participating organisations will communicate details of how arts and culture stakeholders can benefit from the extended subsidy, after COS.
In addition to support under the enhanced ACRP, qualifying arts and culture organisations (qualified under Tier 2 support) will also benefit from the extension of the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) at 10% for the months of April – June 2021. This represents a further extension from the 17-month support already given in the earlier budgets in 2020.
Since April 2020, through support of the ACRP, NAC has:

To-date, over 12,000 job and training opportunities have been committed for the ACRP. This includes the Capability Development Scheme for the Arts (CDSA), the Digital Presentation Grant for the Arts (DPG), and NAC-commissioned works and partnerships under the Digitalisation Fund.
NAC Emerging Stronger Conversations with the Arts Community
Updated as of 8 March 2021