The Fund for Arts and Culture in Central and Eastern Europe

Founded in 1991, the fund is a nonprofit corporation governed by four officers in consultation with a 26-member board of advisors. There are no paid full-time staff members and officers and consultants who represent the fund do so without compensation. The fund provides assistance upon request to selected major arts and cultural institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, to "support their efforts to adjust to a free market economy."

Assistance is primarily provided through consultations by experts in the fields of nonprofit organization and planning, public relations, marketing, fundraising, administration, management, and governance. After the fund receives a formal invitation from an arts or cultural institution in its territory, a fund director makes an initial visit to more narrowly define needs and identify experts who are capable and might be willing to provide the needed assistance as unpaid consultants. These experts then travel to the region and provide whatever services are needed�lectures, training courses, roundtable discussions or seminars, individual consultations, etc. After such a visit, follow-up is maintained, usually by fax or e-mail.

Since the fund began work, 39 consultants have made numerous individual trips to four countries in the region; together, they have spent 922 days with host arts and cultural institutions. In Russia, the fund has worked with the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, but they have also provided seminars on management, marketing and fundraising for regional museums in Irkutsk, Omsk, Yaroslavl, and Pyatigorsk. A description of this aspect of the fund's work, found in an appendix to their 1997 annual report, is of exceptional interest. In 1998 they held similar seminars in Khabarovsk and Dudinka (Taymir peninsula).

Last updated:    June 1999

A print version of much of the information contained in this NIS Third Sector Organizations section can be found in the The Post-Soviet Handbook (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1999).

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