The summer concerts on Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt, the Quedlinburg Cathedral treasure back in the cathedral, the Schillertage in Mannheim. There are more and more art projects and cultural happenings in cities, towns, states and on federal level, which would not be possible without philanthropic engagement. Germany’s cultural life is lucky to be enriched by the manyfold initiatives of foundations and enterprises. But it is not easy for the artists, projects and institutions to find the right sponsoring. In order to get funding, they waste much time and effort in asking for funding at as many institutions as possible, in the hope to get the right contact person somewhere. Many foundations, enterprises and institutions spend a lot of time writing letters of refusal, because many applications don’t meet the funding criteria at all.

All are missing a central information point, an up-to-date overview over the numerous possibilities and initiatives in Germany, which are sponsoring arts and culture precisely, once or on long-term basis, on a regional, national or European level.

The Deutsches InformationsZentrum Kulturförderung wants to produce relief and act as a bridge between arts, culture and sponsoring and establish an extensive and up-to-date database.

In the long-run the Deutsches InformationsZentrum Kulturförderung shall become a clearing point and international contact point for the funding sector of arts and culture.

 

The Deutsches InformationsZentrum Kulturförderung will collect all information about private and public sponsors of arts and culture in an online database and will make them easily accessible to everyone. The updated information shall be set up and hosted as an online database, which will be accessible from everywhere. An extensive system of catchwords helps those looking for funding to find the funder which fits their qualification, their ideas and their projects. Sponsors themselves will get more applications of fund-seekers which really meet their criteria. In this catalogue of funding possibilities, sponsors can position themselves and further develop their offers.

The Deutsches InformationsZentrum Kulturförderung will make the sponsoring of arts and culture in Germany even more professional. For a lively society of knowledge and information, creativity is the main resource. Whoever is sponsoring arts and culture is sponsoring the future of society. Networks and transparency in cultural funding will intensify the discourse in society and strengthen the variety of the artistic and cultural landscape in Germany.

 

Three partners are working together on this project, all of which are important actors, either directly or indirectly, in the field of arts and culture sponsoring. All three bring with them key competences and experience from private and public culture and arts sponsoring. They are convinced, that the exchange of information and data is a huge advantage for every single one and for all together.

The Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen has the most extensive and actualised collection of foundation data in Germany. More than 3.000 members of the association have cultural and arts sponsoring as their purpose of sponsoring. The Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI is the only nationwide platform in Germany for professional and private funding of culture. With its 400 members – most of them enterprises- it stands for the dialogue between economy and culture.

The Kulturstiftung der Länder is an established partner on national and international level for arts and cultural management. Here the research of further information sources and the networking on an international level is being coordinated. There already exists a cooperation with the  LabforCulture of the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam.