In Canada, arts and culture have long depended on more than just public funding — businesses play a vital role too. To recognize this, Business / Arts presents the Corporate Champion of the Arts Award, a prestigious honour for corporations that demonstrate significant, long-standing support of the arts and culture sector.

This award celebrates companies whose contributions go beyond single donations or short-lived sponsorships. It acknowledges sustained investment, authentic partnerships, and meaningful community impact. Recent winners include Nicola Wealth (2025), Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries (2024), and Power Corporation of Canada (2023). These companies, among others, have set powerful examples of what it means to be a guardian of culture in Canada.

Purpose & Vision of the Award

The Corporate Champion of the Arts Award has several core purposes:

1. Honouring sustained commitment
   It is not enough to sponsor one exhibition or make a one-off gift. The award rewards corporations whose support is consistent over many years — through multiple projects, partnerships, and funding streams.

2. Encouraging peer investment
   By highlighting exemplary corporate behaviour, the award aims to inspire other businesses to invest in arts and culture. It sets benchmarks for corporate citizenship in cultural fields.

3. Strengthening communities and culture
   Investments in the arts are also investments in community well-being. Cultural institutions help build identity, foster creativity, and connect people across diverse backgrounds.

4. Annual recognition
   The award is part of the broader Business / Arts Awards, an ongoing program that each year identifies and recognizes leaders in business, philanthropy, arts leadership, volunteerism, and community impact.

Key Aspects & Criteria

What makes a company eligible or notable for this award? Below are the essentials:

Notable Recent Recipients

Here are some of the recent winners, with what makes their contributions noteworthy:

• Nicola Wealth (2025)
  Recognized for its deeply rooted and varied support of Canadian arts and culture. With core values centered around community well-being, Nicola Wealth has supported institutions like arts schools, museums, performing arts companies, and other cultural programs. Their work is cited for being not just financial but also relational — building long-term partnerships. 

• Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries (2024)
  A Crown corporation with decades of commitment. Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries supports hundreds of cultural and arts organizations across Manitoba — sponsoring festivals, community arts programming, theatre, dance, etc. Their investment includes both monetary support and volunteer involvement from staff and leadership. 

• Power Corporation of Canada (2023)
  As another example, this corporation has been a consistent contributor to national and regional cultural organizations. Their work helps provide stability and predictability to institutions that otherwise struggle with irregular funding. 

Other past recipients include companies like Canada Goose (2022) and Equitable Bank (2021), all contributing to a growing legacy of corporate cultural investment in Canada. 

Broader Impacts & Why It Matters

Why does an award like this carry weight? Beyond ceremonial recognition, there are meaningful outcomes:

• Cultural sector stability: Long-term corporate backers help institutions plan confidently, retain staff, and launch new programs without being wholly dependent on shifting public grants.

• Visibility for arts: When corporations publicly support culture, it raises awareness among customers, employees, and the general public that the arts are essential and worth preserving.

• Inspiration for smaller enterprises: Seeing major companies lead by example can encourage SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) to participate in arts philanthropy or find creative partnerships.

• Economic & social return: Arts contribute not only to quality of life but also to jobs, tourism, education, and mental health. Investments in arts often produce return beyond what is strictly financial.

• Equity, diversity, and inclusion: Many recent recipients and nominees emphasize support for underrepresented artists, equity-seeking communities, and regional arts ecosystems. This broadens who gets to create and whose stories are told.

How Businesses Can Become Champions

If your company is interested in being a leader in arts support, here are steps to consider:

1. Build long-term relationships with cultural organizations, rather than short-term sponsorships.

2. Align support with mission values — whether that’s education, youth, innovation, community service, or equity.

3. Engage beyond money: volunteer involvement, in-kind contributions (spaces, marketing, services), employee participation.

4. Look for multi-year commitments or endowments to ensure impact lasts.

5. Focus on impact and measure it: how many people reached, how many artists supported, how community members experienced cultural events.

The Corporate Champion of the Arts Award is more than just an accolade — it is a marker of responsibility, vision, and civic partnership. Through sustained contributions, recent recipients like Nicola Wealth, Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries, and Power Corporation of Canada show that being a champion of the arts means embedding culture into the life of business.

For Canada’s arts sector, this award signals hope: that there are committed corporate partners who recognize that arts and culture are not luxury add-ons, but central to identity, community, and well-being. As the award continues to elevate these companies, it also helps chart a course for others: encouraging them not only to support the arts but to invest with intention, integrity, and impact.

For more information please visit https://www.businessandarts.org/artsvest/ 

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