Arts and Culture Funders Forum

Vision

Our vision is for philanthropy to fully embrace, regardless of the issue-based portfolios of foundations, the societal role and transformative power that arts and culture can unleash if rightly recognised and empowered. We envision a world in which arts and culture are considered as essential to both reimagining an audacious future, unlearning, and fostering social change.

Themes

• Future trends that will shape the arts and culture sector
• Arts and culture field as a key driver for social change
• Arts, culture and climate action

Activities

We aim to nourish a network of foundations investing in arts and culture by identifying new trends, emerging topics and practices; exploring cross-cutting and cross-sectoral work and opportunities; and listening to the sector and anticipating its needs, challenges and changes.

Listen, research and anticipate: We bring together our individual foundations’ perspectives and transform them into a shared knowledge and understanding at European level, contributing to joint research projects and striving to anticipate trends that shape the future of arts and culture. We continuously reflect on the unique role of philanthropy in supporting the arts and culture sector, while building cross-thematic links to bring down issue-based silos.

Share knowledge and practices: We celebrate the creative drive towards social change that arts and culture bring, while exchanging information on how to reinforce the structural fragility of the sector. We do so by organising in-person and online exchanges for foundations and including artistic and cultural operators.

Speak as one voice to influence the field: We bring together foundations under the same umbrella so that they can raise the profile of the arts and culture sector in Europe, boost its role in our society and economy, and increase philanthropy’s collective influence in this area. We do so by supporting initiatives that advocate for a more prominent role of arts and culture in EU policy, demonstrating the EU’s political commitment to place culture at the heart of the European project.

Collaborate towards joint action: We foster collaboration opportunities to achieve greater impact, for example by identifying joint funding opportunities, exploring options for pooling funds, and developing other collaborations with a variety of stakeholders (cultural institutions, other foundations and associations).

How to engage

Join the Catalyst Funders Board

All arts and culture funders willing to act as sounding board between the philanthropic community and the artistic and cultural practitioners can be part of the Board.

Its role is to identify key trends and topics of crucial interest to arts and cultural funders in Europe, shape the annual programme for the Arts and Culture Funders Forum and resource its implementation by providing direct and/or indirect contributions. Three Board members act as Chairmanship on a rotating basis of two years, acting as a reference point for Philea.

Join the Community

All Philea members – Full and Associate – can join the network and participate in the activities organised by the Steering Committee. Philea non-members such as organisations interested in arts and culture, cultural institutions or operators, artists and collectives, can also join.

Non-funders can participate in the annual event as speakers and participants, as well as to exchange information. The network’s activities target philanthropic organisations and leverage the multiplier dimension of philanthropic infrastructure organisations to disseminate learnings at the national level.

Catalyst Funders Board (Chair – European Cultural Foundation, Vice-Chair – Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation)