// cultural entrepreneurship fund

About the Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund

  • The Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund (CEF) brought to life by The Festival one week one europe GmbH and CreativeMind is a financial innovation to foster entrepreneurship in Europe’s creative/cultural industries.
  • The fund will have an initial capitalization of approx. € 2 million and targets a return of 4-7 %.
  • The Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund builds on the success of microfinance – investment in social entrepreneurs/social businesses.
  • The Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund will apply the highest standards in financing “Social Businesses”.
  • The Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund boasts fascinating story lines (supports European narrative) – the perseveration of culture with commercial/entrepreneurial activity.

For whom

The Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund serves cultural entrepreneurs who generally have…

  • little or no access to commercial financing.
  • below-market rate of return (Cultural entrepreneurs do not aim to maximize financial returns, but cultural/social returns).
  • high transaction costs – financial needs too small for commercial financing and too large for micro finance.
  • other risks which can be mitigated with assistance of knowledgeable advisory board and advisory services (screening, investment team, portfolio management, detailed due diligence, monitoring and reporting).

How it works

The Cultural Entrepreneurship Fund will be fed by different sources, principally, deriving from corporate sponsorship and event turn-over.

Apart from classical income through catering, merchandizing, ticket sale, etc, no cash payment cards at The Festival event will facilitate the possibility to do “round-ups” with any consumption. This can be an engaging factor because event visitors can follow the rising total sum of capital acquired; creating a “We” feeling.

In the after-math to the event in Juy 2012, the CEF will start to be operational. Micro loans between € 1,000 and € 10,000 will be granted to cultural entrepreneurs throughout Europe in the fields of art, cuisine, fashion, film, music & sports.

All social businesses coming out of this initiative can be tracked at thefestival.eu creating fascinating story lines which support the mission to co-author a European narrative.

For questions please contact cef@thefestival.eu.