3. Funding

Federal State DistributionCo-FinacingOverview of Funding Programs

In total, 266 projects in six grant programs were supported in 2024 – on the basis of 732 formally correctly submitted grant applications. For a cross-program application volume of around 24.7 million EUR, the real funding amount in 2024 was around 7.7 million EUR. This corresponds to a funding ratio of approx. 30% across all programs.
The prognosticated co-financing shares from federal states, municipalities and third parties were reached and were thus, in the regular grant programs, approximately 55% of the total costs of the realized projects. In 2024, the Fonds thus supported individual projects with a total volume of approx. 17.1 million EUR on average with approximately 45% and offered a cross-federal state stimulus for additional grants from the federal states and municipalities. 
In one sentence: With almost 7.7 million euros in federal funding, 266 projects in the independent performing arts were made possible in 2024 - from all disciplines and genres of the diverse art forms and all 16 federal states!

The Fonds awarded grants for projects in the independent performing arts in all 16 federal states in 2024. Premieres, openings and project launches were made possible in 76 different cities and municipalities – often followed up by guest performance tours throughout the federal republic and internationally. In terms of the ratio of applications to funded projects, the table is headed by three eastern German federal states: Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt.

In addition to the regular funding from the Fonds (approx. 7.7 million EUR / approx. 45% share), further funding amounting to 9.4 million EUR / 55% of the total volume of the projects is provided - mainly from public funds and to a lesser extent from other third-party funds. This means that the Fonds’ funding is more than doubled by the municipalities and federal states in particular.

Since 2016, the Fonds has received most of its funding for the fulfillment of its statutory tasks to promote art and culture from the budget of the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM). In 2024, thanks in particular to the necessary increase in the amount of funding, five of the six targeted grant programs could be advertised in the regular funding, thus enabling numerous projects for artists/groups and structures of all disciplines and genres of the independent performing arts. 
The funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the context of the program Kultur macht stark. Bündnisse für Bildung has also already been enabling the grant program GLOBAL VILLAGE KIDS since 2023, which makes projects on the interface between the independent performing arts and cultural education possible – and in 2024, especially the important work with children and young adults in rural areas of the Federal Republic of Germany.

After the NEUSTART KULTUR years, no concept funding could be announced for the 2023 financial year for the first time since the decision to introduce it in 2009. The 2024 program was resumed in an enhanced form with a deadline of February 5th due to sufficient funding.
The concept funding supports independent groups, ensembles and artistic collaborations that have been working successfully throughout Germany and internationally for many years in the further development of conceptual strategies over longer periods of time and outside of regular production processes. With the three-year funding program, the Fonds Darstellende Künste not only enables these outstanding groups to realize several new productions, but also gives them time and space to acquire additional co-producers, additional sources of funding as well as new audiences.

With production funding, the Fonds Darstellende Künste enabled long-term professional and independently producing artists and groups to find and further develop new aesthetics and expressive formal languages to artistically explore social developments, realize production projects and present these productions for the first time to the public.

Funding federal networks for production and performance venues, associations working successfully long-term as well as festivals strengthens supra-regional and interdisciplinary dialog. With network grants, the Fonds Darstellende Künste enabled cooperative projects between the diverse structures and actors in the independent performing arts in order to realize and expand the nationwide exchange on socially and artistically relevant issues and topics, for the qualifying transfer of knowledge as well as for debates and orientation in topics of transformation.

Artistic works need a perspective beyond their premieres. Supporting revivals ensures that productions have a lifespan that limits wasting resources by renewed performances, adaptations as well as guest performances throughout the federal states. With revival funding, the Fonds Darstellende Künste thus enabled artists and groups to have the time and space for the revival as well as  the further development or reworking of productions that had previously been funded by the Fonds and whose premiere had already taken place.

Creating synergies and enabling partnerships: In making residencies possible in a pilot funding program with the flausen+bundesnetzwerk, the Fonds intensified the cooperation of artistic cooperations with independent production venues - in urban but especially also rural regions. The focus is on artistic experiments and the practical research on concepts. 
Accompanying the funding to the artists/groups, the network and its member venues were given the opportunity to guarantee the residencies taking place throughout Germany, to provide spatial, professional and technical support, to give dramaturgical advice and to offer the public an insight into the diversity of artistic works and approaches at a closing event (see network funding).

The GLOBAL VILLAGE KIDS program made projects possible on the interface between the independent performing arts and cultural education in two funding emphases: artistic projects in rural areas and artistic projects in digital spaces. 
The artistic projects were aimed at children and young people between the ages of 3 and 18, particularly those in social, financial or educational risk situations, children and young adults with disabilities and children and young adults who have refugee experience. For both program focuses, approaches in the various genres and fields of the independent performing arts as well as new and age-appropriate approaches to art and culture were promoted that dealt with both local and global issues. For the digital program focus, the projects opened up digital and hybrid spaces as well as techniques in the various genres and disciplines and enabled artistic-empowering, conscious and critical approaches to digital media.

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