Advocacy

Advocacy is a means to advance our mission and to achieve our programmatic goals. We aim at influencing public policy and decisions on priorities and resource allocations within political and philanthropic institutions. Within ECF’s 2020-2025 strategy, advocacy focuses on the following:

There is no recovery or future for Europe without culture. Europe needs a new Cultural Deal, a transversal, overarching framework that should demonstrate the EU’s political commitment to place culture at the heart of the European project. The European Cultural Foundation, Culture Action Europe and Europa Nostra (representing the European Cultural Alliance) jointly proposed a Cultural Deal for Europe framework.

The EU is a key actor but culture is not yet well and centrally enough positioned to unfold its full potential. Culture needs to be placed at the heart of EU policy-making to contribute effectively to solving European challenges and be more substantially and adequately funded to strengthen the European project. We advocate for the mainstreaming of culture in other than culture policies, and for the doubling of the EU’s Creative Europe budget from €1.4 billion to € 2.8 billion in the next 7-year budget cycle (2021-2027).

While the foundation sector in Europe amounts to EUR 60 billion annually, there is hardly any philanthropy whose mission and core business are Europe. There is no equivalent to a European Gates Foundation, there is no Rockefeller, no Soros, no European Welcome Trust. Where are the European philanthropists? ECF, Europe’s first European foundation advocates for at least 1 per cent of philanthropic resources in Europe to be invested in a flagship initiative of European purpose.

During the “A Cultural Deal for Europe: A central place for culture in the EU’s post-pandemic future” event one of the chapters in the debate is dedicated to philanthropy with a European purpose. Click here to learn about the event.

The CrAFt project will place the transition to climate neutrality at the heart of urban stakeholders. Together with all the project-partners we will test and share collaborative local governance models to harness the value of inclusiveness, aesthetics and sustainability towards climate neutral cities.

Click here to find out more about the project.

The EIT Culture & Creativity will train the sector’s future entrepreneurs, power its cutting-edge ventures, and deliver innovative solutions to the challenges facing the cultural and creative sectors. The EIT Culture & Creativity will be the platform to experiment with new forms of partnerships and funding models for the cultural and creative eco system.

The European Cultural Foundation is part of the carefully crafted pan-European partnership bringing together 50 partners from 20 countries across Europe, big and small, to boost culture and creative industries and strengthen their role in and for Europe.  ECF will bring its knowledge, capacity and networks to the innovation community and through partnership with stellar organisations amplify its scale and impact.

Read more about EIT Culture & Creativity here.

We are a European foundation with a firm base in Amsterdam. We are eager to see initiatives, organisations and individuals join our cause in advancing Europe through culture, across Europe but also in Amsterdam. We support strategic ventures in Amsterdam with a European purpose. We aim at partnering with the City of Amsterdam and other locally-based key players to co-develop a vibrant European space and invest in innovative and inspiring organisations that ignite cross-overs between culture, politics, academia and creative economy.

We are a member of several foundation and civil society platforms that share our vision and values and and advocate together with us for a Europe that is democratic, open, inclusive, culture-based and future-oriented. This includes among others the European Foundation Centre (EFC), European Policy Centre (EPC), Culture Action Europe, More Europe – external cultural relations, NEF’s Civitates, and EDGE (Engaged Donors for Global Equity) Funders Alliance.