Large foundations nearly double support for arts since 2000

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Large foundations have nearly doubled their support for culture and the fine arts since the end of the last decade. Last year grants given by the five largest art foundations alone equalled the amount given by all state arts committees combined - nearly EUR 22 million.
      The growth is attributed to the stock market bubble of the late 1990s; the foundations managed to cash in their portfolios while share prices were at their peak.
      At least two-thirds of the money donated by the five largest foundations went to the traditional fine arts: pictorial art, literature, music, and the performing arts.
     
The greatest surge of growth took place already in the 1990s. In just over a decade the money distributed by both the Finnish Cultural Foundation and its Swedish-language equivalent, Svenska Kulturfonden, has increased more than tenfold.
      The trend is attributed almost exclusively to the improved return on the foundations' stock market investments. Both the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Svenska Kulturfonden managed to cash in on their holdings in Nokia when the company's shares were at their peak.
      Both foundations also earned well on their dividends.
     
A decade ago nearly 60% of the grants distributed by the Finnish Cultural Foundation went to science. Now this has declined to close to 50%. Accordingly, the proportion distributed to arts and culture has risen to 45%.
      Last year the Finnish Cultural Foundation granted nearly EUR 10.2 million to science and culture.
      According to Antti Arjava, Secretary-General of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the scales tipped in the direction of the arts in the 1990s. "At that time it was felt that there were actually too many bodies supporting the sciences, while artists were finding it hard to find funding for their work", Arjava says.


Links:
  Finnish Cultural Foundation

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