Our Mission.
To enable every region the access and infrastructure to permanently hold the value of its most sovereign resource, its culture, for the betterment of the communities that create it.
Within twenty years, regions treat their culture as wealth they own and invest in. Creative work is valued for everything it gives over time, and a share of that value returns to the places and people who made it.
The output of community
Culture is the output of community. Wherever people live together they produce it, and what accumulates over generations is a resource in the full sense of the word: it belongs to a place, and its value can be held.
The arts are how that resource is worked, and creative IP is the form in which it becomes ownable and durable. Every piece of creative IP carries utility for the people who use it, and that utility has value that today goes largely unpriced. A Creative Wealth Fund holds that value on behalf of the region and returns it to the community that produced it.
It belongs to a place, and its value can be held.
Why sovereign
We call culture a sovereign resource because of who produces it and where. Norway’s oil belongs to Norway because it sits under Norwegian ground. A region’s culture belongs to the region because the community there made it, and it can only be made there.
The comparison with oil is deliberate, and it holds at almost every point. The one place it breaks is the one that matters most. Every barrel drawn reduces what remains, while culture grows as it is used, so a fund that holds its value holds something that renews.
| Oil under Norwegian ground | Culture made in a region | |
|---|---|---|
| Belongs to | The state, by geography | The region, by who made it and where |
| Over time | Finite. Every barrel drawn reduces the remainder | Renews. Each work adds to the stock and draws on it |
| How it is worked | Extraction and sale | The arts, formed into creative IP |
| Held for the people by | The Government Pension Fund Global, since 1990 | A Creative Wealth Fund |
From community to capital
The path from a community to a lasting asset already runs through every region. People living together produce culture, and the arts give it form. Creative IP makes that form ownable and durable, and as it is used it goes on generating value long after the work is made.
Some of that value is priced. Most of it goes unpriced today. The last step, holding it for the region that created it, is the one that has never been built.
Alongside public funding
Public funding for the arts does essential work, keeping creative life strong where markets undersupply it. A Creative Wealth Fund sits beside it. It takes long-term positions in the work, the venues, the creators and the enterprises that public money helps bring into being, so that when their value grows, a share comes home.
A fund beside the budgetA Creative Wealth Fund adds to a region’s existing support for the arts. A share of what it earns supports the region’s cultural programs, alongside the arts budget it already has.
Briefings
We host sessions with governments, cultural agencies, foundations and researchers, in confidence, on the model and on what establishing a fund would involve for their region.