Culture of Solidarity Fund

The latest edition of the Culture of Solidarity Fund welcomed European transnational collaborative initiatives that address the theme of just transition and environmental sustainability from a specific cultural angle.

Climate change is the most pressing concern of our time. A successful systemic transition from resource-intense Western lifestyles to more sustainable models requires a radical change in individual and societal values relating to work, the environment, and social justice. However, such a transition must be fair and equitable. Culture plays an important role in this context because it shapes people’s beliefs and behaviours. Cultural and art organisations, community media, activists, and creative sectors have a unique ability to foster solidarity, raise critical questions, and build consensus.

By considering the cultural context and specific values of communities, these actors can develop transition strategies that are fair, equitable, and respectful of the needs and aspirations of all affected, ensuring that no one is left behind.

For more details on the call, please refer to the guidelines and selection criteria. The deadline to submit your application was 11 September at 13.00 CEST. The call is now closed.

We launched this special call looking to promote the visibility and embeddedness of Ukrainian Culture across Europe, in partnership with EUNIC (the network of EU National Institutes for Culture), with funding from several EUNIC members and with core financing led by the Goethe-Institut (currently holding the Presidency of the EUNIC network), and the Institut français and Instituto Cervantes, as well as the grantmaking support of the European Cultural Foundation.

After a successful application, fifteen cultural organisations in thirteen European countries organise exhibitions, host assemblies, screen films, engage in research, and offer public lectures. They will receive grants of up to € 25.000 to do so. All together these events will help embed Ukrainian culture in wider European spheres.

In the first months of its existence the Ukraine edition of the Culture of Solidarity Fund has awarded more than 80 projects with the total of just over 1.3 million Euro, not in the least thanks to the growing European coalition of funders. 

The fund supported initiatives in four categories: coordinated emergency actions; independent media countering war infodemic, safe cultural spaces; artistic and cultural expressions countering fragmentation.

While acknowledging its historically specific position, Eastern Germany is a prime example of a region that has proven its resilience, flexibility and capacity to innovate in the face of radically transformative challenges, accumulating a wealth of practical experience and skills that would benefit all Europeans at this critical moment, but in particular, those regions similarly affected by systemic transformations. The Eastern German experience – its successes, failures, and challenges -could serve as their rallying point for culturally engaging with each other in a spirit of transnational solidarity and hands-on collaboration.

This call was launched together with Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. The call was open to cultural organisations as well as organisations from other fields of work and public institutions that are based and/or active in Eastern Germany or in European regions similarly affected by deindustrialization, population decline, social dissolution, failing public infrastructure, and ecological crises.

Europe needs a shared public space where a culture of solidarity can be practiced. It is there where the ongoing infodemic can be combatted. Visit SHARE under our programmes to read more about the European Cultural Foundation’s work on the development of a European public space.

In collaboration with Fondazione CRT and Fondazione CRC we invited organisations from the Piedmont and Aosta Valley regions to submit project ideas and proposals that connect local work with a real pan-European dimension. This round of the Fund sought to support imaginative cultural initiatives that reinforce pan-European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space from a regional and cross-border perspective.

With our first round we supported big and small initiatives that would grow a European culture of solidarity and support partners and grantees flexibly in the redesign of their activities in response to the Corona Crisis. The first round also supported new imaginative ways of sustaining people-to-people contacts and human interaction across European borders during travel restrictions and social distancing.

In the second round, we looked for projects which grew immediate crisis responses into more future-oriented solutions and extended from local levels to building cross-national alliances and pan-European initiatives.

We published an information leaflet with short descriptions of the first two rounds, including some data on the applicants and the leverage.

We collected some data on where the first round applicants are based, how they heard about the call, in what sector they work, and whether our objectives of the call were reflecting the needs of applicants.

“The fund will support big and small initiatives which grow a European culture of Solidarity, support partners and grantees in a flexible manner in the redesign of their activities in response to the Coronacrisis, support new imaginative ways of sustaining people-to-people contacts and human interaction across European borders in times of travel restrictions and social distancing”, wrote our director in an introductory blog.

Arts and culture will not be the same after COVID-19. The new situation requires new approaches and solutions at local, national and European level. We teamed up with Culture Action Europe to map emergency initiatives and measures carried out across Europe that address the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on culture, arts, creative sectors – with the aim to identify key challenges and possible gaps, or needs, yet unaddressed by the policymakers.