SUMMERDAY FOUNDATION

Endowment for cultural innovations

This is a special foundation that carries out its activities using the income from the management of endowment received from the so-called "angel investors." Such a foundation is used for non-commercial purposes to finance educational, healthcare, scientific and cultural organizations.

An endowment can invest its funds in order to derive revenues, but it is obliged to direct all the income earned in favor of the organizations and projects it was created to support.

The difference between an endowment and a conventional charitable organization is the strictly targeted nature of the activities (as a rule, an endowment is created to support a certain organization, for example, a certain university), as well as the fact that, unlike sponsors, angel investors are able to get their investments back in full, exclusive of the income that goes for the foundation needs.

Those who have available funds for investing and who may wish to withdraw their funds in full at the end of the investment period

Those who optimize taxes, since investments in the endowment provide tax deductions to individuals and municipal budgets

Those who care about the corporate social policy

Those who have reached the desired amount of capital and are looking for ideas of its qualitative transformation and influence beyond their business achievements

Those focused on investing in eternal values and in our country's artistic heritage

Those who pay much significance to seeing their names among the co-customers' names and the names of opera houses and philharmonic halls, who would like artistic works, festivals or musical spaces to be identified with their names and activities

Those who find it crucial to be involved in the development of breakthrough cultural projects

Those who are interested in influencing artistic tastes and bringing Russian composers to the world level

The foundation performs its activities only using its profit.

Profit is extracted only by the Management Company.

Any contributor has the right to introduce their observer to the financial council under to the law and the charter of the foundation.

The foundation makes reports to the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis.

All innovative and outstanding projects in the Western world are supported by private banking and financial structures through endowments established specifically for this purpose. Such foundations support theatrical and musical communities, festivals, and publishing houses, which allows cultural figures to meet community demands and to respond to new civilizational challenges.

Russia lacks such experience in the field of art. The public consumes products of the music industry which was developed by commodity culture and uses the same principles as 200 years ago. There are no established institutions that respond to the demands of the present day, such as publishing houses, festivals, and music agencies. The history of private money in contemporary Russia is very short. The patronage of the late 19th century, which is often cited as an example (Mamontov, Shchukin, Morozov), has a fundamentally different nature than that existing in our time. Then it was (and supposed to be) almsgiving, while nowadays it implies lending money in every sense of the word; it is social responsibility and actually a full-fledged reputation policy. Endowment allows for solving of patronage issues with real influence on the arts while keeping up with the time.

In terms of its structure, culture financing in Russia has always been focused on state support; therefore, the state has always been the party which orders new works.

We do not have festivals, publishing houses, and agencies that would generate new orders for artists and composers.

To date, state support is targeted at academic forms of art. And actual orders to Russian composers, for example, come from Donemus Publishing (the Netherlands) or from producers of foreign festivals and film studios.

Endowment funds are transparent and, therefore, more difficult to deal with than sponsor money.

An investor provides funds for projects verified by the expert community.

Participation in the foundation becomes a deed of social responsibility for contributors.

Individuals — endows of the foundation — get tax deductions (only individuals and government entities so far).

An investor does not risk losing the principal amount of their contributions and can withdraw from the foundation by taking back the full amount of the contributed funds in accordance with the procedure established by the contract.

The foundation makes expert reviews of selected projects and orders through the Board of Trustees, which consists of outstanding representatives of the Russian World.

The foundation initiates its own orders and implements its own projects.

The foundation can participate in other festival orders that coincide with the foundation's target programs.

It monitors the cultural space.

It exercises full control over the implementation of turnkey projects, as it is obliged to publish reports and audits to the Ministry of Justice under the charter.

Creating a financial structure to initiate orders and projects

Acting as a co-author and a co-customer of new musical and cultural phenomena

Obtaining copyrights

Attracting third-party individuals and legal entities to provide the foundation with endowments

Implementation of educational activities

Creation of its own art agency for implementation of the foundation's projects

Aims at staging operas written by contemporary composers

For musicians participating in productions and orders of the foundation

Sound recordings of musical works initiated by the foundation or a festival

Includes the foundation acting as a co-customer of works along with theaters, festival organizations and symphony orchestras

Pro-active participation of the foundation in the popularization of works created by performers, authors, and artists

Creation of a space for the foundation's own activities