See our Report to the Public 2024

The Lithuanian Council for Culture presents its Report to the Public 2024. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the year, including information on funding for organizations and grants for creators, the Council’s structure and achievements, and insights into the country’s balanced cultural development. Additionally, it highlights international cooperation initiatives and the launch of a new phase of the Design Wings project.

In 2024, the Council for Culture placed special emphasis on supporting creators, with Council members stressing that direct investments are essential to ensure that creative work does not become merely a side activity. " Upon thoroughly analysing the situation and comparing budgets, values, and approaches of arts councils in Lithuania and other countries, we found that the emphasis on individual creators and the level of direct investment in them are inadequate. In light of these findings, the members of the Council raised the individual grant to €800 per month and expanded the total annual grant budget from €1.6 million to €2.6 million." said Asta Pakarklytė, Chairwoman of the Council for Culture.

Digitization remained one of the main priorities. We implemented a significant change by updating the Electronic Cultural and Art Project Management System (LKT IS 2.0), which we hope will simplify the application and administration processes, optimize funding mechanisms, and enhance transparency. "This tool will not only streamline the application process for organisations but also optimise the internal workflows of their teams. In addition to this, following our victory in the Innovation Agency's GovTech funding contest, we explored artificial intelligence (AI) solutions within our organisation to simplify daily operations." added Rūta Stepanovaitė, the Council’s Administrative Director.

Brief Overview of 2024

In 2024, we bolstered arts and culture by funding 1,332 projects, distributing over €19 million. The majority of funding was allocated to projects in music, performing arts, and visual arts.  

To support individual creativity and professional development, we awarded 638 individual grants, amounting to €2.67 million. Similar to previous years, this year’s grants were predominantly awarded to music (142 grants), followed by fine arts (94 grants), theatre (80 grants), and interdisciplinary arts (75 grants).

To ensure sustainable cultural development across the country and to encourage cultural diversity and local cultural identity, the Council allocated over €3.3 million to the Balanced Regional Growth projects, implemented across ten Lithuanian counties. Projects from Šiauliai County received the highest amount of funding, consistent with the previous year. It should be noted that Šiauliai County Municipality made the most significant additional contribution to the financing of cultural projects, amounting to over €378 thousand.

We continued our support for Ukraine and its cultural community. Last year we awarded 70 individual grants to Ukrainian creators residing in Lithuania, totalling €126 thousand. The largest share of grants went to the fields of music, visual arts, theatre, and dance performance.

In 2024, the Design Wings project returned with updated goals while maintaining its core concept of connecting businesses with emerging designers. The project’s previous achievements were recognized with the European Sail award from the Ministry of Finance for investments in innovation. Additionally, by invitation of the 2024 Social Innovation Forum organizers, Design Wings presented the project at the Social Innovation Fair in Brussels.

We are pleased that our communications team received recognition in 2024. The Council's Public Relations Coordinator, Karolina Bagdonė, was ranked among the top 10 strongest candidates at this year's PR Impact Awards.

You can read the Council for Culture’s full Activity Report to the Public 2024 here. To read the Lithuanian Council for Culture’s detailed 2024 operational plan implementation report, click here.

Prepared by Viktorija Jaškauskaitė, an intern at the Lithuanian Council for Culture.