Philanthropy and the Creatives - a new dynamic yet to be shaped A look at foundations in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein

The covid pandemic has put arts and culture in our focus again. Individuals, collectives, big institutions or smaller organizations and enterprises working in the cultural and creative sector across the globe were heavily impacted. Ad-hoc support was strong and fast, often also thanks to private, charitable foundations creating specific emergency funds accompanied by simpler accessibility and administration, and generous financing possibilities.??Despite such support,?it was obvious that the sector lacks accessible, sustainable, and?comprehensive?support mechanisms. What have we learned?

Support for the Creatives is diminishing

Plans to engage differently with the cultural and creative sector risk ebbing away. The large number of crisis we are facing on an individual, societal, and global level force us to prioritize and seem to limit our will to start something new and bear risks. Exposed to a whole range of crises and unsure which scenario to follow, we tend to restrict access, limit resources and investments instead of opening up and extending commitment. Thus, we rather increase inequalities of opportunities than widening support. Foundations are called upon to act. Are they ready? We look at?private foundations in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein and ask if they provide, what we want to see?

Privat grant-making foundations are key supporters and donors of the cultural and creative sector. Philanthropy and the arts and culture have always been intertwined. However, both areas have undergone major developments in recent past. The foundation sector is increasingly being professionalized; arts and culture have broken out from their bubble into other fields of society and economy, creating thereby the so-called?Orange Economy?- a booming economy, with huge challenges and unlimited opportunities; a sector?under immense transformation, requiring new ways of interaction. The pandemic has made the needs more obvious; the change, however, has been under way for some time now.

A sector under transformation

Conventional?classifications, categorizations and standards are losing their validity. New working and business models are being developed. Existing relationships and power dynamics are being questioned.?Young people are dominating the sector’s transformation and?are working on a new ecosystem that better reflects the role of creativity in society, economy, environment, and politics.?Private, grant-making foundations in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein are a major partner and source of income for people working in the cultural and creative sector or with creativity. They are the perfect bodies to fuel the discourse and try out new approaches to reinforce and empower the cultural and creative sector. They have, however, not yet sufficiently taken up the topic on how to address the sector’s transformation and its complex ecosystem.

Too often, foundations focusing on arts and culture show a preference for a few standard sub-sectors such as performing arts, music, film, or visual arts, while other sub-sectors of the Orange Economy – e.g. fashion, media, design, crafts - seem to be rather neglected or supported by foundations aiming for economic and international development that rarely understand it as a contribution to the cultural and creative sector. Furthermore, other sub-sectors and occupations related to technical or support services are taken for granted and seldom considered support-worthy. Finally, current grant-making practices and modalities are not always suitable for people working in the cultural and creative sector as they do not sufficiently take into consideration the many changes the sector is undergoing.

The reasons for such a hesitant approach by foundations are manifold: inconsistency in defining the cultural and creative sector; contradictory concepts - with foundations rather change-resistant by nature versus a sector in constant of motion; lack of data and information about the sector, in particular related to new operating mechanisms and the impact of digitization; weak lobby work by people working in and for the sector; rigid patterns of charity and partnership. The lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the whole ecosystem by foundations is not helpful for the sector’s development. It misses out on strengthening its overall sustainability and impact, and it overlooks the sector’s potential. Furthermore, it makes it difficult to assess the foundations’ investment in and engagement towards the sector and to draw any conclusions.

Ideas for future grantmaking?

Recommendations to empower the interaction between foundations as donors and people working in the sector as grantees include: acknowledgment of the sector and its ecosystem; promotion of participation and decision-making power of young people in foundations’ work; enabling inclusion and networking across sectors and disciplines; simplification of accessibility and communication between donors and grantees; adaptation of eligibility criteria for grantees and of grant-making practices; investment in knowledge creation and dissemination; considering new finance models; investment in competence building and skills development; fair renumeration; rethinking the partnership model.

What would happen if a platform were created where private foundations would have to pitch their grants to Creatives? Where foundations would have to qualify to invest in the grantee instead of grantees having to prove their worth to the donors? A space where grantees would choose the foundation they would like to partner with based on the available grant amount and, even more so, on partnership modalities and additional support the foundation would be ready to provide? What would such an experiment look like? Why not flip the paradigm? Why not provide a new space for the Orange Economy where Creatives take the lead and foundations serve??

The detailed article by Carole Guertler can be found on our website: https://creativeeconomies.com/philanthropy-and-the-creatives-a-new-dynamic-yet-to-be-shaped/