Art² Application Guidelines

The Art² Grant is now closed. We encourage you to apply for funding for major arts projects in the October application round.

Eligible Applicants

Eligible applicants for the Art² Grant include registered organisations, foundations, and public art institutions in all fields of art. The grant may also be applied for a joint project of a number of collaborators. In such case, one of the collaborating parties must act as the designated applicant for the grant and as the project leader.

Eligible applicants listed above may also apply for a grant for a collaborative project together with independent groups and organisations or individual artists.

List only those collaborators in the application with whom there is at least a preliminary contract for the project. As a contact person for the collaborator, enter a person who is able to answer questions pertaining to the project and is reachable in the months following the application deadline.

Private individuals, self-employed people operating under a business name, or working groups consisting of private individuals are not eligible for this grant.

The contact person in the application need not have the authority to sign documents on behalf of the applicant, but should know the project and be reachable during the months following the application deadline. The contact person logs in to the service using their personal Finnish online banking credentials.

Grant Purpose

The Art² Grant is applicable for projects aimed at making high-quality art more accessible to wider audiences.

Application Evaluation Criteria:
•    the artistic quality of the project,
•    the credibility of the project to reach larger audiences and to measure its implementation,
•    the plausible positive effects of the project on the applicants' operation (in terms of content and financially) in the future, for example in the form of proceeds from ticket sales or with the increase of other funding.

The grant may be used, for example, to extend the ordinary planning and preparatory work period of an artistic production, and to enable large-scale implementation to reach new or larger audiences. The grant-funded project may, for example, pilot new production models such as carrying out new collaborations between the independent field and art institutions – also internationally – or by developing an already-implemented production through trial runs.
The grant may be used, for example, to cover expenses incurred from touring or mobility of artists. The grant may also be used to market a project, but, in such case, the grant use must still primarily focus on the development of an artistic production.

As the applicant is a legal person, they cannot distribute the grant of the Cultural Foundation onward as a grant. For example, remunerations made to performers must be treated as salary or income from business operations with their resulting tax deductions. This must also be taken into account when budgeting for expenses.

The Cultural Foundation is favourably disposed towards higher travel costs due to the journey taking place in a way that pollutes the climate and the environment as little as possible.

The Art² Grant may not be used to cover expenses incurred from the basic operations of the applicant (For example, a grant applied for by a public art institution cannot cover the usual salary costs of its regular employees, or the space costs of its premises.) These costs can be included in the self-financed share.

Types of Grants Awarded

The share of the Cultural Foundation of the total funding of the project is set between 100,000 and 300,000 euros. The number of grants awarded will be from two to five.

The grant is intended to be used for expenses incurred only after the grant has been awarded. The maximum duration of the grant is three years. A project that has been awarded an Art² Grant is not eligible for continuation grants.

Application process and timetable

The application consists of two stages. The stages take place in the Online Application Service of the Cultural Foundation, the first during the March application round and the second during the August application round. The application period ends on the deadline date at 4 pm local Finnish time (Eastern European Time).

Attachments cannot be appended to the first-stage application. Everything essential must be described in the space allotted in the application form. This includes statements, which are also not accepted in the first stage of the application process.

The applicants chosen for the second stage of application process will be informed of a favourable decision to the email address provided in their application. The applicants chosen for the second stage will not be made public.

A maximum of ten applicants will be chosen for the second stage. These applicants are each eligible for a maximum of a 4.000-euro grant for the further development of their project. At least half of this sum must be used to obtain an outside specialist/consultant. Other possible purposes of use include, for example, travel expenses incurred from the planning and the meetings with collaborators. Approximately two months is allotted to the further development of the project. The purpose of use of the grant must be stated in the application, and the expenses must be incurred before the end of the second stage of the application process.

In the second stage, the application must include a more detailed project plan, budget, and a measurement plan that describes how the increase in audience numbers, the aim of the Art² Grant, is to be measured and tracked. The application must also include a register extract of the organisation, a written undertaking for the project signed by a person (or people) with the authority to sign on behalf of the organisation, and possible necessary decisions, for example, by the board of directors of the association or the foundation. Attachments sent by post are not accepted. Instead, all attachments must be scanned and appended to the online application.

The applicants will be informed of the decisions to the email address provided in their application and grant recipients will be announced on the website of the Cultural Foundation in October. Note that the Finnish Cultural Foundation does not justify its grant decisions.

Awarded grants

The second stage decisions to grant will be announced by the end of October. Along with the second stage decision to grant, the applicants may be required to further develop their project plan before the use of the awarded grant may begin.

The grantee undertakes to act in accordance with the plan set forth. If the key content of the project changes or the timetable is delayed to the following calendar year from the one set forth, the grantee should contact the office of the Cultural Foundation. The grant may not be transferred or donated to a third party.

The Foundation hopes that when notifying others of the awarded grant, you include that the grant was awarded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. On social media, please use the hashtags #taidetoiseen and #kulttuurirahastontuella. A printable logo of the Finnish Cultural Foundation may be downloaded here.

Reporting

Should the grant period be 24 months or more, the grantee is required to submit a progress report 12 months after the payment of the first grant instalment. For further instructions, please see the Guidelines on progress reporting.

Grant reports must be submitted using the Online Services for Grantees. The deadline for reports is one year after the payment of the last instalment. The report must detail the main content of the project, events and their numbers of participants, a plan for the future of the project (if applicable) as well as an evaluation of the success of the project and the fulfilment of its goals. The use of the grant must be itemised by expense type using a separate appendix.

This page was last updated on December 15, 2022.