REPORT 1 – PART I: Maps, Tools and Future routes for Cultural giving

Every atlas begins with the need to navigate a complex landscape. Cultural fundraising in Italy develops through relationships among cultural organisations, citizens, businesses, foundations, public institutions and communities, bringing together financial resources, expertise, trust and participation.
The Atlas was created to make this still-fragmented ecosystem easier to understand. It combines academic literature, sector reports, secondary data, interviews and organisational cases to map practices and actors, classify fundraising instruments and interpret ongoing transformations. It is conceived as an open and continuously evolving knowledge resource supporting both research and cultural-sector professionals.

How is culture supported in Italy today? What resources are mobilised, through which instruments, and with the contribution of which actors?
The first part of Report 1 maps the field of cultural fundraising in Italy by bringing together academic literature, sector reports, available data, and insights from professionals and experts. Donations, sponsorships, the Art Bonus tax incentive, crowdfunding, membership programmes, and the cinque per mille scheme form a multifaceted landscape in which public and private resources intersect with expertise, relationships, and organisational capacity.
The report highlights existing practices and instruments, as well as the gaps that continue to make the field difficult to assess: fragmented sources, inconsistent definitions, limited data comparability, and territorial and organisational differences. The result is an initial shared knowledge base for understanding the current state of the field and guiding the Atlas’s next areas of exploration.