The purpose of the Leon and Thea Koerner Award is to create a legacy that honours over sixty years of grant making through annual awards to registered charities and other qualified donees in BC. The awards will create social benefit using professional art-based activity in collaboration with community social service agencies, First Nations Band Councils or Friendship Centres.
The Award is aimed at achieving social benefit, recognizing excellence and innovation and leading to social change or transformation.
The Award recognizes the importance of collaborations/partnerships between professional artists/professional arts organizations and community social service organizations, First Nations Band Councils or Friendship Centres.
Definitions
Social benefit: a collaboration of professional arts and community social services non-profit organizations leading to social change or community transformation.
Professional artists: individuals in the disciplines of community-engaged arts, creative writing, dance (performance/choreography), media arts (film, video, audio/sound art and new media), multi-disciplinary practice, museology and conservation, music (performance, composition), publishing, theatre (performance, design, directing, technical), or visual arts (creation, curation), artists or arts administrators who have completed basic training in their discipline (not necessarily in academic institutions) and have an artistic practice of two of more years subsequent to basic training; and are recognized by other practitioners working in similar disciplines.
Professional arts organizations: registered or operating as non-profits or cultural entities with a board of directors or equivalent, the primary activities of which are the creation, production and/or dissemination of works of art and culture.
Community social service organizations: providers of a broad range of services and programs to improve the condition of a wide variety of vulnerable people.