FUNDER35
A growing cultural enterprise
The FUNDER35 project, founded in 2012 on the basis of an idea at theACRI Commission for Cultural Activities and Heritage, aims to assist young people’s cultural enterprises in the acquisition of management and production models, to ensure better positioning on the market and greater efficiency and sustainability. An initiative led by the Foundation, in its first edition (2012-2014) 10 foundations signed up, with as many as 18 in the second (2015-2017). The third edition, launched in 2018, has gathered the support of 19 foundations.
The foundations promote the FUNDER35 project with the aim of strengthening the solidity and stability of the best young people’s cultural enterprises in Italy, in the belief that these enterprises, with stronger organisation and management and thanks to an innovative and quality artistic and cultural proposal, can remain on the market more easily.
The organisations selected become recipients of support initiatives related to organisational, managerial and technological innovation issues, to support the improvement process and encourage the optimisation of resources. Orientation activities on tax, administrative and fundraising issues at a domestic and international level are also planned.
An overview of the resources allocated in the first two editions of the project is provided below:
| FUNDER 35 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | TOTALE |
| PROGETTI PERVENUTI | 59 | 57 | 47 | 166 | 184 | 169 | 682 |
| PROGETTI FINANZIATI | 15 | 18 | 21 | 50 | 57 | 62 | 223 |
| DELIBERATO (€) | 900.000 | 1.000.000 | 1.000.000 | 2.500.000 | 2.500.000 | 2.500.000 | 10.400.000 |
According to a decision by the 19 promoting foundations, the third edition of the FUNDER35 project differs from the predominantly “grant-making” nature of the previous two and focuses its resources on the following three axes:
- consolidation and expansion of services for cultural enterprises put in place in previous years, to confirm the role of FUNDER35 as a national benchmark on issues related to business and cultural innovation, with particular attention to youth organisations
- strengthening and gradual extension of the community of cultural enterprises selected in the previous two three-year periods (223 projects involving about 300 young people’s organisations);
- construction of a network between all the initiatives carried out by the promoting Foundations, consistent with the theme of FUNDER35 and with the idea of further ‘welding’ the pact between the promoting Foundations, signalling them outwards as those most sensitive to the issue of cultural innovation and youth enterprise.
Over 10 years of experience at the FUNDER35 Project – sponsored by ACRI and with a broad scope at national level, a total of 20 promoting foundations, with Fondazione Cariplo in the lead – is recounted in the Funder35 Handbook, downloadable from this page.