With an increasing number of events receiving larger than normal grants and no firm policy in place, the town administration is working on revising its Civic Partnerships, Community Grant and Arts & Culture Endowment Fund Policy.

Suzanne Gaida, deputy chief administrative officer, says the town aims to have a new policy in place before community grant applications are received in the New Year.

Recently, the Cochrane Fair received a $7,500, much more than the typical $2,500 community grant, after a presentation to council. It requested the funds to help keep admission prices down and pointed to the fair's economic impact upon the community.

The community grants fund was also in the unique position of having funds available. Up until that point, only $29,165 of $45,000 allocated had been utilized.

The town's community grant program currently caps funding at $2,500 for applicants. Whether that cap will be higher or more flexible could be among the considerations.

"Those are certainly options being considered," explains Gaida.  "We already have different types of grants within the current policy, only the community grants has the cap on it.  A few years ago council raised the cap from $2,000 to $2,500 for community grants and council can always look to increase or remove this cap if they wanted to."

The town has been loosening the purse strings on its grants in recent years. In 2017, special grants were provided for both the Labour Day Parade and Cochrane Light Up that fall outside of the regular policy perimeters. Each has received $10,000 annually for both 2017 and 2018. The town gave them this special status because both draw thousands of people and are free to attend.

So far, though, there is no identified process in place by the town to allow other events to apply for this level of support and that is something administration aims to remedy. They will be bringing forward an update for council consideration in the fall.

Since the Cochrane Ag Society grant was approved in August, no one has stepped forward seeking the same treatment as far as Gaida is aware.

Besides community grants, the policy also covers financial support for civic/other partnerships, and an arts and culture endowment fund.