--- With management and business knowledge. Talent, the cultural fact makes it excellent, but many times it leads projects that need a bridge of knowledge with the business world. For example, we, with the Impulsa Cultura program, accompany cultural projects already underway for a year, and help them work on many areas that they, due to their training, have not known. A violin virtuoso does not have to have had training in accounting, but may need it to live from their talent and for their project to succeed and endure over time.
— Would that be "give a fish or teach how to fish"?--- Teach them to fish, and take them to a river full of fish! Almost 300 projects from Catalonia have passed through the foundation. Projects of all kinds, big and small… and that have generated great impacts in their environment and benefits for society. Culture has the capacity to impact many areas, and sometimes we are not aware of it.
— For example?--- Culture has a clear intellectual impact. It makes you think, it awakens your critical spirit… They even say, in fact, that if it doesn't bother you, it's not culture, right? Culture is also an economic engine: it generates an economic impact beyond the cultural event itself. When you go to the theater, for example, you have surely spent money on transport, on food, on a hotel… And it also has an impact on the territory. Culture transforms territories. We see it, for example, with projects like the Itinera Festival, a project that travels through the micro-towns of Catalonia and brings music or arts to where there is really a serious problem of depopulation. And in this way, culture is decentralized and reaches places where it was not reaching. This project, in fact, has attracted attention in the Spanish and European spheres, and is already being replicated outside our borders.
— Another example of territorial transformation?--- The Gargar Mural Art Festival, which takes place in Penelles, a rather unknown village in Lleida, where in August the heat is terrible. It all started with some girls who brought people to paint murals on the walls of the village. And now it is a festival where people from all over the world go to paint murals and, during the week, thousands and thousands of people visit that village, generating an economic and cultural bonanza that it would not otherwise have. Culture has a return and, unfortunately, even today it has to be explained.
"If it doesn't bother you, it's not culture"— Do you have to explain that return, you mean, when you go to raise funds? Is it hard to find funds for culture?
--- Very much. Within fundraising, culture is often on the last rung. Social needs, obviously, have a lot of visibility in society, and the pandemic repositioned research in a good place. And with culture... we still lack a more strategic view that recognizes its added value. The return when you are a patron of a food bank or an oncology hospital is more tangible, it doesn't need to be explained. But in culture, unfortunately, it seems it's not so evident. We are such a culturally rich country that it's hard for us to see that return. But what would Catalonia be like if, in the late 18th, early 19th century, the bourgeoisie, the businessmen and businesswomen had not supported those talents who have left us a legacy from which we still live?
— We need to do more pedagogy of patronage.--- That's right. And especially cultural. But we need schools to be more sensitive to the arts. That is, you cannot love what you do not know. And if in school we do not give importance to artistic subjects or activities, we do not generate cultural awareness. And we are not aware of the return that culture has, also in the school environment. Through theater, for example, many things are overcome: self-confidence is gained, one learns to speak in public, one empathizes with other perspectives...
"You cannot love what you do not know"
--- Role models are also missing.
--- We lack role models in Catalonia, who also help to educate. But here we are silent patrons. We need to show off.
— The fear of falling into greenwashing, right?--- The fear of being accused of greenwashing, of exposing themselves, or even the fear of the call effect, that other foundations may come to ask for more contributions.
— Tell us about patron references!--- I'd better give you an example of a company that is reversing this trend and that is deciding to put, in its brand, that it is a cultural patron: Llet Nostra. The company, which is a member of the Catalunya Cultura Foundation, organizes an annual festival and all the money it raises is donated to the foundation, beyond what it already contributes periodically. Well, with this, Llet Nostra has decided to put the Impulsa Cultura seal on its milk containers. And they do it because they consider it important for the consumer to know that, despite being a small company, it cares about Catalan culture, which is part of its identity, and that this roots it to the country. It is part of its DNA.
— There is also ignorance regarding the legislative framework.--- Yes, and that's despite the fact that with the reform of the law, we have a regulatory framework for crowdfunding that is one of the best-rated in Europe. But we suffer from a great lack of awareness. Only 3 out of 10 people in Catalonia know that if they donate 250 euros, 80% will be returned to them via income tax. But we lack the pedagogy that was done in France with the Aillagon law, which went territory by territory explaining patronage and its benefits. That, for example, we have incorporated into our proposed patronage law for Catalonia.
— Let's talk about the law. In December 2023, the reform of the state patronage law was approved, but it is not enough.--- What happens is that the reform was made of the national law, and Catalonia has a section of personal income tax in which it can legislate on patronage matters. And that is what we are asking for. Catalonia deserves a patronage law, other autonomous communities already have it.
— How is the administration responding to this petition?--- We have the bill proposal admitted for processing and the political parties agree on the text, but the context is missing. We are discussing the context. But we know, from the Government, that work is being done and we hope that in this legislature the first patronage law of Catalonia can see the light.
— Finish the sentence —and the interview—: if there were no cultural patrons (like Llet Nostra),...--- …we would live in a much sadder and darker society.
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