Austria/ 6. Financing of culture  

6.3 Trends and indicators for private cultural financing

According to the Initiativen Wirtschaft für Kunst (IWK, Austrian Business Committee for the Arts) – which has launched several incentives to promote arts sponsorship in Austria, for example the Maecenas sponsorship award, and also conducts studies in the field – the estimated private sponsorship potential amounts to about EUR 50 million. According to a survey of the top 500 companies by the IWK, 43% of Austrian companies engage in arts sponsoring, with energy providers at the top, followed by the banking and insurance sector. In 2011, investment in the field of art and culture was seven times the level in 1989. A considerable part of the sponsoring takes place through sponsoring in kind or transfer of expertise.

Apart from this, prizes for fine art are also awarded by private sponsors, for example the Bank Austria Art Prize, the Strabag Art Award, the Prix Ars Electronica, the Theodor-Körner Funds etc. In the field of literature there is the famous Ingeborg-Bachmann Prize, which has been sponsored by the city of Klagenfurt since 1977, the Salzburg Bull honours cabaret artists and is awarded by the Working Group for Entertainment on German-Language Broadcasters. There is unfortunately no comprehensive overview; an overview of the invitations for applications for fine artists can be found at the portal of IG Bildende Kunst.

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