Art and culture are indispensable for our society. They collect and pass on shared values, thereby promoting social cohesion and forming the basis for identity and identification as a shared cultural memory. At the same time, they put attitudes and positions to the test, open up new perspectives and thus contribute to dialogue, diversity and development.
For the Savings Bank Finance Group, the promotion of art and culture is a key pillar of its social commitment. In 2024 alone, it supported a wide range of art and cultural projects in all regions of the country with funding totalling around 135 million euros. This makes it the largest non-governmental sponsor of art and culture in Germany.
In 1999, the DSGV established the Sparkassen-Kultufonds (Savings Banks Cultural Fund) as a special instrument for promoting culture. It celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. It has set itself the goal of facilitating projects with national and international appeal, giving them appropriate attention and making them accessible to as many people as possible. The Sparkassen-Kultufonds does not compete with or contradict the decentralised cultural promotion of the savings banks. On the contrary: it sees itself as a complementary building block in the rich and varied promotional landscape of the Savings Bank Finance Group. It almost always works in co-operation with the regional associations, their foundations, the savings banks and the associated companies at the location of the cultural project being supported. This approach reflects the decentralised structure of the financial group and highlights individual projects of the regional institutes of national importance. The Sparkassen-Kultufonds of the German Savings Banks and Giro Association has just under 1.5 million euros per year at its disposal for this purpose.