Skip to main content

Pūtea Tautoko – Funding

There is some funding available, usually through contestable funding pools, that you can apply for to support your projects.

Funding for Māori built heritage and the environment

Arts

History, research, and digital technology

Professional development

Other funding

Click here to return to the Te Ara Taonga homepage

Funding for Māori built heritage and the environment

Oranga Marae

Oranga Marae is a programme of support, advice and investment for marae. It gives whānau and hapū advice and support to help develop their marae and achieve their goals. This support may include building projects and activities to revitalise cultural knowledge.

A key goal of the programme is to strengthen the ability of marae to pass on their ancestral knowledge of whaikōrero, karanga and local mātauranga, tikanga and kawa to descendants.

Oranga Marae supports these outcomes:

  • marae are safe and healthy, contributing to the well-being of iwi, hapū and whānau
  • people are engaged on the marae and an increasing number of events and activitiesare held to ensure the transmission of mātauranga Māori
  • marae increasingly contribute to the revitalisation of te reo and tikanga Māori
  • whānau work together to develop the marae

Oranga Marae is provided by Te Puni Kōkiri and the Department of Internal Affairs. It replaces the Lottery Marae Heritage and Facilities Fund (LMHF), which has permanently closed

National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund

Administered by Heritage New Zealand, this provides financial incentives to encourage the conservation of nationally significant heritage places in private ownership. Any wāhi tapu, wāhi tapu or wāhi tūpuna area in private ownership that is either entered on the New Zealand Heritage List / Rārangi Kōrero, or has been notified for listing as wāhi tapu, or wāhi tapu area is eligible to apply to the fund.

Regional Cultural Heritage Fund

The Regional Cultural Heritage Fund enables central government to make strategic one-off grants to assist the completion of major regional arts, culture and heritage capital projects. Grants will be for the purpose of renovating, restoring, adding to, and constructing buildings in the broader art gallery and museums sector (including iwi museums/whare taonga).

Arts

Ngā Toi Māori – Creative New Zealand

A number of grants including the Toi Tipu Toi Rea is a grant to support Māori artists or practitioners, at an early stage of their career, or Tohunga Tukunga mentoring programme offers funding to help preserve and pass on contemporary and traditional Ngā Toi Māori (Māori arts) knowledge and practice.

Creative Communities Scheme (CCS)

Each year Creative New Zealand provides Creative Communities Scheme (CCS) funding to city and district councils throughout New Zealand to distribute in their area. The scheme supports more than 1,800 projects every year. Amount: Mostly under $2,000. Contact your city or district council for more information.

New Zealand Film Commission

The Commission provides loans and equity funding to New Zealand filmmakers to assist in the development and production of feature films and short films.

NZ On Air

NZ On Air funds diverse local content on television and online including digital, music and radio. Their digital media fund offers support for innovative, interactive content and applications, including web and mobile applications, software, games, transmedia and multi-platform projects.

Te Māngai Pāho

Te Māngai Pāho makes funding available to the national network of Māori radio stations and for the production and broadcast of Māori language television programmes, radio programmes and music recordings.

History, research, and digital technology

Commemorating Waitangi Day Fund

The Commemorating Waitangi Day Fund supports events that commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and promote nation and community building. The fund aims to encourage a wider mix of communities to take part in Waitangi Day events.

New Zealand History Research Trust

The New Zealand History Research Trust Fund offers financial assistance to people carrying out projects that will significantly enhance the understanding of New Zealand's past. The funding can be used for a variety of purposes: to enable historians to work full-time on a project; to pay for research and writing costs; and to pay for travel costs associated with research.

New Zealand Oral History Awards

The New Zealand Oral History Awards (NZOH) provide financial help for the recording of interviews relating to the history of New Zealand/Aotearoa and its close connections with the Pacific.

Projects submitted for consideration should contribute significantly to our understanding of New Zealand’s past and its people.

Digital knowledge, research and librarianship scholarships and awards

The National Library has collated information on a number of scholarships and awards for Digital knowledge, research and librarianship.

Ka Hao: Maori digital technology development fund

The Ka Hao: Māori Digital Technology Development Fund is a contestable fund to support initiatives that will create high value jobs and opportunities to advance Māori in digital technologies. In 2014, the government allocated $30 million to 2021 for a Māori ICT Development Fund to support:

  • Māori economic development by encouraging Māori participation in the ICT sector, and access to Māori language and culture through ICT.

Professional Development

Professional Development Grant 

Use our Professional Development Grant to access museum or gallery training programmes – local or international – with long-term benefits for you, your organisation, and the sector.

Maximum funding request: $1,000 excluding GST

Travel Subsidy Grant

Subsidies for travel expenses associated with museum or gallery training in New Zealand. 

Maximum funding request: $300 including GST

Other funding

Helping Hands Grant

Use our Helping Hands Grant to get materials, services, and information for your museum or gallery – as a whole, or to support specific projects.

Community Grants

The Department of Internal Affairs helps build strong New Zealand communities.

We do this by providing advice, information, support and resources to help people and organisations, and their communities, hapū and iwi, become strong and successful now and in the future.

Quick Response Grant

Quick Response Grants help New Zealand artists, arts practitioners and arts organisations to create and distribute their work. Decisions take five weeks and typically one in four or five applications gets funded. Online applications open six weeks before the closing date.



Updated on 14th March 2023