In the award category “Best Cultural Fundraising Action”, Votiv-Kino GmbH was honored together with Café Liebling, which implemented the “Bellaria Kino Retten!” campaign using crowdfunding. “The campaign to save the Bellaria cinema impressively demonstrates the level of commitment that can arise when a certain location is an integral part of the city of Vienna. The creative and versatile approach – from posters to social media activities – as well as the activation of numerous communities was convincing on all levels,” says the jury’s reasoning.
1,453 supporters donated over 135,000 euros. “When a project has potential and the sympathizers catch fire, the impossible becomes possible. Apparently, we managed to let the sparks fly to ignite this fire,” says Michael Stejskal, operator of Votiv Kino, Kino De France and Bellaria Kino.
ImPulsTanz receives prize for cooperation with company
The “Best Company Partnership” award for particularly successful cooperation between cultural institutions and companies went to the ImPulsTanz festival for the partnership with Renault that was established together with mayr & more under the motto “Why you should actually dance the Twingo”: “In this symbiotic partnership creativity, movement, technology and aesthetics met. In addition to classic media, a digital experience was created that culminated in a live event and perfectly presented the strengths of the partners Renault & ImPulsTanz,” emphasized ImPulsTanz director Karl Regensburger.
The OTTO Kulturgenossenschaft, whose project transformed the old building yard in Ottensheim (Upper Austria) into a venue for art and culture, scored points in the “Small but smART” award for the best fundraising campaign by a small cultural initiative. Within a very short time, 220 people had joined the cooperative to make the project possible. The 10,000 euros targeted for the crowdfunding campaign more than doubled.
Awarded at the Diplomatic Academy
“The newly created prize is intended to give the extremely exciting but still relatively sparse cultural fundraising campaigns more visibility, encourage cultural providers to take their own initiatives through best practices and at the same time draw more attention to the cultural sector as a whole, which has been severely affected by the pandemic,” emphasized Günther Lutschinger, Managing Director of the Fundraising Association Austria, who initiated the culture fundraising awards in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and with the support of the Austrian Lotteries.
The presentation of the trophies, designed by the artist Gisela Stiegler, took place after the specialist conference for cultural fundraising and sponsorship at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna.
Donation potential over 60 million euros annually
Unlike in many non-profit areas (including social, animal or environmental protection), private fundraising in the cultural sector is still the exception and relatively little established compared to the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands or even Germany, says Lutschinger. “The willingness of the population to donate is great, but cultural institutions are still making very little use of it through tailor-made appeals for donations.” Eight percent of Austrians are currently willing to donate to art and culture, which represents a potential of over 60 million euros a year correspond to