Glossary

These are key terms used in the General Funding Guidelines, in specific Fund Guidelines and application and outcome forms. Refer to the Arts Queensland Data dictionary.

• Administration and support staff: For Arts Queensland funding, administration and support staff includes: project manager, HR, finance, legal, food and beverage staff, and other administrative roles.
• Artist: For Arts Queensland funding, artist includes:
  • Actor, theatre director, dancer, choreographer, teacher-artist, dramaturg
  • Community cultural development worker, experimental arts practitioner, craft practitioner, including jeweller, textile artist, ceramic artist, glass artist, wood worker
  • Musician, singer, instrumentalist, music director, composer, songwriter, arranger, producer, librettist
  • Visual artist, including painter, photographer, sculptor, printmaker, installation artist, illustrator
  • Writer, including playwright, author, poet, book editor, script editor.
• Arts worker: For Arts Queensland funding, an arts worker is an individual who works in the arts sector to support or manage artists and arts programs, including:
  • Arts management, including Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director, Artistic and Associate Director, producer
  • Production and technical staff, including stage managers, operators, workshop, wardrobe, production manager, instrument tuner, venue box office and front of house,
  • Recording engineers, producers, and mechanists
  • Publishing production staff
  • Librarian Curatorial staff, gallery and exhibition mounting staff
  • Tour booker or broker, artist management
  • Marketing staff
  • Community liaison staff
  • Designer (set, costumes, lighting, sound, fashion, graphic, software, and website
  • Teachers and tutors (dance, music, art, drama).
• Attendees – Refer to the Arts Queensland Data Dictionary
• Audience development – the ongoing process of understanding the needs of, building relationship with, and growing audiences over time.
• Auspicing / Auspice body – where someone other than the applicant takes responsibility for all legal and financial obligations, including how the grant funding is spent and ensuring the funded activity is completed and acquitted in time.
• Australian Business Number (ABN) – a unique identification number issued by the Registrar of the Australian Business Register to business entities.
• Business partnership – a formal or deliberate collaboration between two or more organisations that delivers mutual, significant, and measurable value aligned to each partner’s strategic goals. For example, an organisation and a local council sign a multiyear agreement to co-deliver a touring program, sharing costs and audiences with joint marketing and evaluation.
• Community – any group of people who identify with each other through a common element that can include geographical location; shared cultural heritage, history or other characteristics; age group; profession; or social or recreational interests.
• Core operations / core business – an organisation’s activities that would happen and incur costs, regardless of whether the proposed project would go ahead.
• Core staff – staff roles employed in an ongoing way by the applicant, regardless of whether the proposed project would go ahead.
• Creative developments – Refer to the Arts Queensland Data Dictionary.
• Creative partnership – a collaborative relationship with an organisation or individual that brings together creative skills, ideas and resources to co-develop, produce, or present artistic or cultural outcomes with shared ownerships or contribution to the creative process.
• Cultural infrastructure – includes buildings and equipment for arts and cultural activity.
• Cultural tourism - visitors’ engagement with activities that support their discovery, participation and consumption of cultural attractions, products and/or experiences unique to the destination.
• DGR status – an entity or fund that can receive tax deductible donations.
• Employee – individuals who are employed under an agreement or award and included in the recipient’s payroll regardless of role.
• Engaged – artists, creatives and arts workers engaged in your funded activity regardless of their employment status or who pays them, including artists, creatives and artworkers:
  • employed under an agreement or award and included in your payroll
  • employed but not on payroll (e.g. paid on contract or commissioned)
  • appearing in your programs, but employed or paid by another entity.
• GST (Good and Services Tax) – the value added tax of 10% on most goods and services in Australia.
• Headcount – total number of people paid directly by your organisation with each person counted as 1, regardless of how many hours they work per week or their employment status (that is, regardless of whether they are full-time, part-time, casual, contractors etc.)
• Home location – the town or city of residence of the artists or touring party, including outer suburbs and satellite towns of regional centres.
• Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) - may include ownership of knowledge, stories, places or rituals, songs, dance, ceremonies, paintings, traditional symbols and designs, making techniques, language.
• In-kind support –  includes real project costs provided free of charge or at a discounted rate, such as volunteer labour, services, administrative support, rent-free accommodation or donations of materials or equipment. These contributions should be given a dollar value and should be included in the proposed budget.
• Intellectual Property (IP) - includes copyright and moral rights, which are legal tools to protect artists’ work from unauthorised use, safeguard their reputation, and generate income.
• Investment partnerships: A financial or in-kind contribution from an organisation or individual provided through sponsorship, grant funding, or other investment that is secured to support delivery of agreed activities or outcomes aligned to your organisation's strategic objectives.
• Metropolitan – for the purposes of Arts Queensland funding, metropolitan Queensland is defined as all the areas inside the Brisbane City Council local government area.
• Non-government organisation – an organisation that is not subject to the control of the Commonwealth, a State or Territory and/or a local government.
• Not-for-profit – a legally constituted organisation whose constitution or rules state that profits or surpluses must be used to further the organisation’s artistic objectives. Any profits or surpluses cannot be distributed to owners, members or any other individual or group of individuals. The constitution or rules should also make provision for the transfer of assets to a similar organisation should they cease operations.
• Operational funding – contributions made by funding bodies that support the core operations and annual programs of arts and cultural organisations.
• Outcome report – a record, provided by the funding recipient, of the project or activity and how the funds were spent.
• Philanthropic partnership – Aa relationship with an organisation, trust, foundation or individual that provides financial or in-kind support motivated by shared social, environmental, or cultural values without expectation of direct return.
• Peer Assessor – an arts industry expert or peer who is responsible for assessing funding applications against a set of funding criteria.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – measures of outcomes or outputs to evaluate activities.
• Public outcomes – people other than the artists and arts workers involved in the project. The 'public' can view the work or attend or participate in an activity. For example, a workshop for a school would be a public outcome, even though the general public would not be able to attend.
• Regional Queensland – for the purposes of Arts Queensland funding, regional Queensland is defined as all the areas outside the Brisbane City Council local government area.
• Rural and remote – for the purposes of Arts Queensland funding, rural and remote communities are defined as MMM4 – MMM7 using the Modified Monash Model (MMM) classification of remoteness.
• Service Organisations - organisations whose core purpose is to provide programs and activities that support artists and art producers/presenters. They include peak industry bodies as well as smaller organisations concentrating on a particular regional area.
• Social impact project – for the purpose of Arts Queensland funding, a project where the main objective is to deliver enduring individual and community outcomes in response to social and community priorities.
• Tour / Touring – the same performance, exhibition or activity happening, in sequence, over a cohesive period of time in more than two external communities (i.e. it needs to be happening in at least three communities other than the applicant’s home location).
• Volunteer: A person working on a volunteer basis and typically not paid. This may include volunteer board/committee members, volunteer fundraisers and auxiliaries, as well as volunteers involved in organisational and other operational activities.

Last updated:

9 April 2026