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Japan Foundation Kuala Lumpur

What projects do JFKL cover?

Japan Foundation Kuala Lumpur (JFKL) offers grants for projects that are involved with promoting Japanese culture in Malaysia. They offer cost-sharing grants; therefore not everything is covered and you should find other sources for funding as well.

There are three categories of projects that JFKL gives out grants to:

Category A: Projects concerning Japan in the field of Japanese Arts and Culture / Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange
Projects such as art exhibitions, film screenings or performances that are related to Japanese culture fall under this category. You can propose a project such as inviting a Japanese artist to Malaysia to do culture-related activities that promote Japanese culture. Aside from that, you can also invite scholars, academicians or experts from Japan for a conference, symposium or seminar.

Category B: Cultural Collaborations
This category focuses more on collaborative projects involving Malaysia and Japan. Exchange programmes also fall under this category.

Category C: Projects concerning Japanese Language Education
This one might not suit you well as this category focuses more on language development and is usually given out to organisations such as schools, academic institutions and libraries. In this category, things like Japanese language teacher training, development and publications of Japanese language teaching resources or acquisition of Japanese materials for library or resource centres would be eligible for grants.

How much funding does JFKL give out?

Category A: Up to RM14,000
Category B: Up to RM30,000
Category C: Up to RM8,000

What are the requirements?

For Category A and B, applicants must be from Malaysia, Singapore or Brunei. Category C is only for institutions that provide Japanese language education in Malaysia. You must be a registered organisation under the Registrar of Societies (RoS) or Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) and have a bank account under your organisation's name. This grant is not given to individuals.

How to apply?

Applications for these grants are open all year long and must be sent at least three months prior to the project start date for physical events, and one month prior for online events for Category A and B.

Here are the steps for applications:

Download the Eligibility Checklist to see whether your project fulfills all the requirements of the grant.
If you are eligible, proceed to download and fill up the application form. Budget proposals are also included in this form.
Submit the forms either via mail, email or an appointment-based visit to JFKL. Email submissions must be followed up with the submissions of the original documents to the JFKL office.

Relevant Info

Aside from the application form, you also need to submit supporting documents such as:

Eligibility Checklist
Detailed project proposal
Information on your organisation
Your organisation certificate of registration
Profile or biography of everyone involved in your project
Agreements with everyone involved in your project
Quotations as per request in your budget proposal

Result Notifications

Applications for physical and hybrid projects for Category A, B and C will undergo a screening process and the results should be within 30 days from the submission of completed application documents. Online projects for Category A and B will be notified of the result within 14 days from the submission of completed application documents.

Grant Payment
The payment for successful applicants in Category A and B will be in two parts whereby the first 50% of the payment will be given out within 30 days after the Notice of Acceptance and Request of Payment form submission.
The second part of the payment will be given out once you have submitted the Project Report, Financial Report and other supporting documents. If the final expenditure is less than stated in your proposal, JFKL will only pay the balance.

Reports
You will need to submit your report to JFKL before the second part of your payment is released. Do not worry too much when writing your report as the formats are listed out by JFKL.

Should you have any inquires outside these guidelines, you can contact JFKL here:

The Japan Foundation, Kuala Lumpur, Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2284 6228/7228 Fax: 03-2287 5859
E-mail: grant@jfkl.org.my

Yayasan Hasanah

What projects does Hasanah cover?

Yayasan Hasanah (Hasanah) is a foundation that focuses on building a socially cohesive Malaysia by maximizing human potential, while conserving our natural and cultural assets. It is focused on five pillars, one of which is “Arts and Public Spaces”. For 2021-2025, this pillar prioritises the conservation of Art, Heritage and Culture (AHC) assets, specifically textiles. It also hosts the annual Arts for All Seasons (ArtsFAS) festival which promotes art.

For the Conservation of AHC assets, there are four types of projects eligible for grant applications:

Research and documentation of the textile landscape of Malaysia
Talent development and tutelage
Awareness and appreciation through workshops or exhibitions
Ensure economic stability through market development

Arts for All Seasons, or ArtsFAS, is a fairly new initiative by Hasanah to make art more accessible to society. It is hoped that this, in turn, would increase awareness and appreciation of preserved and conserved art such as Wayang Kulit, Teochew Puppet Opera and classical Indian dance. If your artform fits in one of these categories, you can apply for a grant.

Aside from that, your project must demonstrate:

Relevance to beneficiaries;
Ability to produce measurable outputs (short-term results), outcomes (mid-term results), and impact (long-term results);
Ability to become sustainable; and
Ability to be scaled up, expanded or replicated across various regions or beneficiaries.

How much funding does Hasanah provide?

The limit of the funds given is up to RM2mil spread over three years. Projects with a shorter duration are eligible for smaller amounts.

What are the requirements?
You must be a registered organisation under the Registrar of Societies (RoS) or Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) with at least two years of operations.

The financial account of your organisation must be audited for two consecutive years (over the past three years); or you have a copy of acknowledgement receipts for two years of annual report submissions to the Registrar of Societies or a copy of income tax submissions to the Inland Revenue Board.

How to apply?
Hasanah grants are awarded once per year and applications are open in November and the results are announced in April the following year. All of the applications are done on the Hasanah grant website.

Eligibility Assessment
Go to Hasanah’s grant website and scroll all the way down to Eligibility Assessment.

Fill out all the necessary details and include your organisation’s registration certificate as well as audited financial accounts for the most recent two years.
After finishing your application, submit it to the Hasanah team.

It will usually take 1 to 3 days for Hasanah to assess your application and you will receive an email once it is approved. The link for the next step will be included in your email.

Create an Organization Profile
After you have successfully passed the Eligibility Assessment and have clicked on the link provided in the email, you will be taken to the Hasanah grant application website where you need to register for an account. Here you will have to create an organization profile.

Complete the Grant Application
Finally, you can proceed with the grant application. Just click on the Get Started button under the Grant Application and fill out all the details, and submit.

Result Announcement
There are two rounds of review before your application is deemed successful.

Round 1: Yayasan Hasanah Grant Committee will review and shortlist the applications. In the past, this usually happened in the second week of March.

Round 2: After the shortlisting, Yayasan Hasanah will conduct Due Diligence on the successful applicants before the final selection. Successful candidates are usually announced in the final week of March.

Supporting Documents
Aside from the application form in the website, you also need to have two supporting documents in your applications: Implementation Plan and a Budget Template. Both of these can be downloaded on the website.

Yayasan Sime Darby

What projects does YSD cover?
Yayasan Sime Darby offers grants to organisations aligned with its five pillars – Education, Environment, Sports, Community & Health and Arts & Culture. It has given out a total of RM27.95mil towards the Arts & Culture pillar since 2009.

YSD covers projects that can sustain themselves after their grants have ended, have a broad impact towards society, are critical in nature, and have clear and tangible goals. Aside from that, your organisation should have a strong team with solid financial resource management and are transparent and highly cooperative.

YSD focus areas for Art & Culture are as follows:

Sustainability of Malaysian Arts, Culture and Heritage – Conservation, preservation and promotion of Malaysian tangible and intangible art, culture and heritage

Arts and Culture Encouragement
1. World-class creative works by Malaysian artistes
2. Providing platforms for emerging artistes

Arts Demand Development
1. Provide access to the Arts
2. Publications, research and documentations

Arts Education and Empowerment
1. Education assistance for arts development
2. Promotion of the Arts for a better society
3. Provide collaboration platforms for improved opportunities

How much funding does YSD give out?
It does not state what the maximum amount is but based upon its annual reports, it has supported some large scale projects and events. Some of its notable long term projects are:

The Conservation of the Royal Press: YSD has sponsored the restoration of the Royal Press Building amounting to RM3.11mil in the span of six years from 2014 to 2021.

Hubs for Good: Collaborating with British Council Malaysia and the University of Malaya, Yayasan Sime Darby has given out RM400,000 for a three-year programme such as capacity building, digital networking platform, and mapping and research of the uses of creative hubs.

What are the requirements?
You must be a registered organisation under the Registrar of Societies (RoS) or Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) with at least two years of operations.

The financial account of your organisation must be audited for two consecutive years (over the past three years) or you have a copy of acknowledgement receipts of two years’ annual report submissions to the Registrar of Societies or a copy of income tax submissions to the Inland Revenue Board.

How to apply?
Submission is open all year long and you can plan your submission according to its quarterly review:

For applications targeted to be reviewed/approved by the end of February, submit the applications by the end of October the previous year
For applications targeted to be reviewed/approved by the end of May, submit the applications by the end of January
For applications targeted to be reviewed/approved by the end of August, please submit the applications by the end of April
For applications targeted to be reviewed/approved by the end of November, please submit the applications by the end of July

You can apply for a grant via the Yayasan Sime Darby website and your application must include:
Project Proposal: The project proposal is the main document that you should focus on and the guidelines of how to write it are available on YSD’s website right before the application button.

Result Announcement
The evaluation and approval process can take up to three from the quarterly review deadline and if it is interested to know more about your project, YSD will contact you within 45 days.

Successful applicants will be contacted via telephone and email for further steps while unsuccessful applicants will be informed via the email address provided in the application form.

Fund Disbursement
Successful applicantS will receive sponsorship in stages with a pre-agreed schedule upon the receipt of supporting documents.

Resubmission of Project Proposal for Unsuccessful Applicants
Unsuccessful project proposals may not be resubmitted for a period of six months but unsuccessful applicants can send out other proposals without any cooling down period.

Further Information
More information can be found on the FAQ section on the YSD’s website. Or you can call 03 7623 7111 for more information.

Krishen Jit Fund

What projects does KJF cover?
Now in its 16th year, Krishen Jit Fund is managed by Five Arts Centre to support the essential work of arts and cultural practitioners in Malaysia. It covers projects such as:

Workshops
Attachments / residencies
Experimental productions
Research and documentation
Writing
Creating new work in music, dance, theatre, writing, film, visual / performance art

How much funding does it give out?
The funds KJF gives out are based on your project proposal but the range for the amounts from the 2021 cycle would be from RM1,000 to RM20,000. Projects that are focused in Malaysia are given priority.

What are the requirements?
Different from the other three mentioned earlier (for which you need to be registered with RoS or SSM and also provide audited accounts), KJF is open to all art practitioners in Malaysia, and the selection will be based upon your CV uploaded in the application process.

How to apply?
The deadline for the 2021 cycle is closed but the Fund is offered every year and you should look out for the deadline on Five Arts Centre’s website. According to the manager of the fund, Marion D’Cruz, they usually send out the call for applications at the beginning of June every year.

Step by step procedures are included on their website. Completed applications are then either be mailed to or send via email to:

Five Arts Centre, 27 & 27A Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Or email to: fiveartscentre@gmail.com

Result Announcement
The open call usually lasts for about two months until the end of July. Both successful and unsuccessful applicants will be notified (usually) in October (two months after the deadline).

Do also note that past recipients of the Krishen Jit Fund are not eligible to apply for the grant for two consecutive years after receiving the grants.
Fund Disbursement

A certain percentage of the fund will be given out upon the signing of the Letter of Agreement while the balance will be released once the project is completed and the final report is submitted.