The Challenge

What new funding models can we create for culture? The pandemic showed that cities could be agile and distribute funding quickly, but it also showed that city funding often doesn’t reach the most vulnerable communities. In addition, digitalisation brings opportunities to distribute funding and support culture with impact. 

The Cultural Affairs Office in Zurich and Vienna are exploring new forms of funding for artists and creative communities and new city funding models. With both cities experiencing demographic and social changes, how can city funding best reach new communities? For both cities making the funding and support processes more accessible and ensuring impact is a priority. The cities are focusing on fair pay for artists, urban development and accessibility to cultural spaces. 

The Exchange

The exchange is taking place through online meetings developing insights and knowledge into each other’s funding models. Building on lessons from the pandemic, the cities discuss how to use technology to make grant-giving easy for artists and communities, particularly providing low-threshold grants. They also discuss how to reach new artists and communities who usually don’t have access to city grants including offering information and advice sessions and developing multi-stage submissions. 

Lessons in Progress

• Lessons from City of Zurich’s ‘Laboratory for New Forms of Cultural Promotion’ show that funding processes can be co-designed with users. Artists and cultural practitioners can advise on the amount and type of grant needed, feedback on the application process before it goes live, and even be part of the decision-making panel.  
• Smaller grants require less due diligence which can make them more agile and easier to distribute quickly, this was the case during the pandemic. 
• Some funders are using video applications or peerreviewed applications to make the application process more inclusive.  
• Funding alone is not always the solution. Support and advice helps applicants spend funding with confidence and as it was originally intended 

Expected Impact

The Exchange is influencing Kultur Labor Zürich, a new city initiative with three funding programmes: “Arts for the Future”, “Community based” and “Creative Tech for Good”. These pilot projects are jointly developed, carried out and evaluated by a team of artists, experts and staff from the Cultural Affairs Office. This is a 3-year project which aims to gain insights for a future oriented funding system, support new forms of art and strengthen participation by artists and the public. The project is like a laboratory and all content is developed through participation and exchange between art and culture professionals, experts and employees of the Cultural Affairs Office as well as the Zurich University of the Arts.  

Vienna is currently developing a wide array of funding programmes to directly support artists, subsidise construction costs of cultural institutions, and has a dedicated programme to decentralise culture. Vienna has been developing a Fair Pay policy for creatives since 2018.

Images Courtesy © City of Vienna & Zurich