Culture of Solidarity

Culture is more than a space for expression, it is a force that sustains democracy. The renewed Culture of Solidarity empowers European civil society with the resources, networks, and visibility it needs to thrive. By fostering cross-border collaboration and shared cultural spaces, it strengthens a culture of solidarity, inclusion, and civic engagement, helping to build a Europe that is more democratic, connected, and resilient.

Since 2020, the Culture of Solidarity (CoS) Fund has offered rapid, values-driven support to civil society. Through twelve different thematic and regional editions and with 24 co-funding partners on board, the fund supported over 280 projects with more than 6 million euros in total.

After a major learning review in 2024, the Culture of Solidarity Fund is evolving into “Culture of Solidarity”: a long-term initiative at the heart of the European Cultural Foundation’s 2025–2029 strategy. In the document below we have summarised some of the review’s key learnings for funders.

Civil society and cultural actors across Europe are under growing strain, from political polarisation and funding cuts to legal and public attacks on independent voices. And yet they remain resilient and vital to democracy and solidarity. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ukraine, where culture continues to sustain public life amid the war.  Europe’s democratic resilience and autonomy rest on nurturing a culture of solidarity that reunites its people across nations, borders, and differences with a broader European idea in mind.

The renewed Culture of Solidarity supports civil society actors, especially those working under pressure, by fostering timely, meaningful, and cross-border cultural collaboration. It confronts the urgent challenges of polarisation and social fragmentation, with a focus on vulnerable communities. At its core, CoS invest in Europe’s cultural democracy infrastructure: the networks, platforms, and shared spaces where diverse communities can come together, participate, and shape a more resilient and inclusive European future.

The new Culture of Solidarity works through three interlinked, flexible instruments:

• Donor Collaboratives: Deepening partnerships with like-minded funders and donor initiatives such as Civitates, Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts, LOKAL and Foundations for Ukraine to place culture at the centre of transformative change in European philanthropy.

• Open Calls: Through regular open calls, CoS supports cross-border collaboration between civil society and cultural organisations. The process is kept simple and accessible, with space for peer exchange and networking. Our upcoming open calls, launching in January 2026, will have a special focus on Ukrainian creative professionals and their European peers, fostering social engagement, integration, and cohesion among displaced Ukrainians.
• Agility Fund: A flexible tool that allows CoS to back innovative ideas that fall outside regular calls, keeping it responsive and experimental.

Drawing on the ECF’s nearly two decades of consistent commitment to Ukraine’s cultural development, the CoS Fund swiftly launched its Ukraine special edition just a few days after the full-scale invasion began.

Starting in 2026, ECF will lead the Creative Europe-funded Culture Helps Solidarity programme with partners Insha Osvita, zusa, and Veteranka. Over 30 months, nearly €2 million will be distributed through more than 20 open calls, supporting Ukrainian cultural professionals working with displaced communities, veterans, and on issues related to wider cultural integration. ECF also joined the Foundations for Ukraine platform for collective advocacy and knowledge sharing around Ukraine’s immediate needs and long-term recovery.

In the coming years, the EU faces crucial decisions that will influence its democratic landscape, with far-reaching implications for civil society, culture, and independent media. At this pivotal moment, ECF sees both a duty and an opportunity to act. Through the Culture of Solidarity framework, in 2025 ECF is stepping up its investment in funder collaboratives to advance strategic advocacy, most notably around the proposed AgoraEU initiative, which calls for stronger European investment in civil society and culture. By mobilising its networks and partnerships, CoS 2025 supports pan-European civil society by advocating for the recognition of culture and civic engagement as core pillars of a resilient, democratic Europe.

In 2020, we launched the Culture of Solidarity Fund to support cultural initiatives that, in the midst of turmoil and crisis, reinforce European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space. Since then, we have launched 12 editions, ranging from supporting cultural actors during the Corona crisis to regional and thematic editions, as well as dedicated Ukraine editions, and an edition helping to mobilise voters for the 2024 European Parliament elections. In these twelve rounds, we have supported nearly 290 projects with over 6 million euros, involving more than 20 co-funding partners.

• COS Round 12 (2024): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Democracy Resilience Edition II supports collaborative, creative initiatives that reinforce Europe’s core values and inspire Europeans to reengage with their democracies in a hopeful and forward-looking manner. 
• COS round 11 (2024): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Democracy Resilience Edition I supports European transnational initiatives that mobilise voters for the 2024 European Parliament elections. This edition has been developed in collaboration with Evens Foundation, Allianz Foundation & partners.
• COS round 10 (2023 – 2024): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Just Transition Interregional Edition: This call is open to collaborative, cultural projects addressing the just transition to environmental sustainability and ecological resilience in Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Aosta Valley.
• COS round 9 (2023): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Just Transition: We launched this edition of the Fund to support European transnational collaborative initiatives to address the theme of just transition and environmental sustainability from a specific cultural angle.
• COS round 8 (2023): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Eunic Ukraine edition II: We launched this second special call looking to promote the visibility and embeddedness of Ukrainian culture across Europe, in partnership with EUNIC, with other core financing led by the Government of Flanders and with additional contributions from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Czech Centres, as well as the grantmaking support of the European Cultural Foundation.
• COS round 7 (2022): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Eunic Ukraine edition: We launched this special call looking to promote the visibility and embeddedness of Ukrainian Culture across Europe, in partnership with EUNIC, with funding from several EUNIC members and with core financing led by the Goethe-Institut, and the Institut français and Instituto Cervantes, as well as the grantmaking support of the European Cultural Foundation.
• COS round 6 (2022): Culture of Solidarity – Ukraine special edition: In the first months of its existence, the Ukraine edition of the Culture of Solidarity Fund – a pooled fund powered by a coalition of 11 European funders –  awarded more than 80 projects with the total of just over 1,3 million Euro. The fund supported initiatives in four categories: coordinated emergency actions; independent media countering war infodemic, safe cultural spaces; artistic and cultural expressions countering fragmentation. Meet the partners.
• COS round 5 (2021): Culture of Solidarity – Cultural grant for regional transformation: 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.
• COS round 4 (2021): Culture of Solidarity – Infodemic: 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.
• COS round 3 (2020): Culture of Solidarity – Northern Italy: 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.
• COS round 1 & COS round 2 (2020): Culture of Solidarity – Covid-19: 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 each round, including some data on the applicants and the leverage.