A feedback survey conducted by the Lithuanian Council for Culture showed that the Lithuanian cultural community is active and interested in the activities of and processes taking place in the Lithuanian Council for Culture and is acquainted with the legal acts in force. The Lithuanian Council for Culture, as a self-governing institution of the country’s cultural community, constantly strives for smooth and professional cooperation with representatives of the cultural community. It can be seen from the data of the survey that close cooperation of applicants and project promoters with the curators of the Lithuanian Council for Culture contributes to the successful funding and implementation of projects.
Conducted in May, the published survey involved 729 representatives of organisations implementing cultural and artistic projects. Representatives of the public sector were the most interested and most active in the survey, with 25% respondents indicating that they were representing non-governmental organisations.
The survey showed that the representatives of the cultural community actively participated in the public events of the Lithuanian Council for Culture and were interested in the Council’s activities and decisions. 74% of the respondents indicated that they sometimes or regularly participated in the events of the Lithuanian Council for Culture, with 40% subscribed to the newsletter.
Benefits of consultations
An overwhelming 92% majority of the respondents indicated that they were familiar with the guidelines for the submission of projects funded by the Culture Support Fund and the descriptions of the scoring of projects. According to the results of the survey, these documents are least interesting to the representatives of art creators’ organisations. Compared to representatives of other sectors, they are less likely to review the descriptions of the assessment criteria: one in five of the representatives of the art creators’ organisations covered by the survey were not familiar with those descriptions or did not see the need for review them.
The applications of the respondents who were familiar with the descriptions of the scoring of the priorities and/or criteria for the assessment of areas or projects and consulted with the curators of the Lithuanian Council for Culture were funded more often. 95% of the surveyed who received funding for their projects were familiar with the criteria scoring descriptions, and 92% consulted with the curators when submitting their applications. 35% consulted at all stages of the project (application submission, project implementation and report drafting). The majority of the respondents stated that from the commentary on the expert assessment, that they would like to know the shortcomings of the applications and the recommendations of the experts for their improvement. The reasoning of the amount allocated and compliance with the assessment criteria are important for half of the respondents. In addition, at least half of the representatives of cultural organisations surveyed would like to know about the positive aspects of their application, and about a quarter of them would expect recommendations on the implementation of the project.
Importance of feedback
58% of the surveyed at least once addressed the curators of the Lithuanian Council for Culture regarding the results of the project assessment. About half of them are dissatisfied with the form of presentation of project assessment results. True, this dissatisfaction was mainly expressed by non-governmental organisations, while more than one in two representatives of the public sector were satisfied with the results of the expert assessment.
This survey has showed that feedback and more detailed expert comments are far more important for members of the cultural community than the issue of expert publicity. Only 2%, i.e. only 16 of the 729 respondents, additionally stated that the publicity of the experts who assessed the specific applications would also be important.
Public consultation
90% of representatives of the organisations implementing cultural projects who participated in the survey indicated that public consultations on legislation drafting or planned changes in the funding procedure were relevant. However, most of them – 70% – did not participate in public consultations on legislation drafting. This is also confirmed by the public consultations, which were organised by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and ended this week, on the main document governing the funding of cultural projects – the guidelines for the submission of projects funded by the Culture Support Fund. Only 513 persons were interested in the consultation, and only 24 representatives of the cultural community provided their comments.
Nearest plans
Taking into account the results of the feedback survey and the comments and suggestions provided, the Lithuanian Council for Culture plans to review the possibilities in the near future and provide the cultural community with more extensive and detailed information about the funded projects. It is also planned to update other data on the website www.ltkt.lt. In addition, this summer, the meeting of the new composition of the members of the Lithuanian Council for Culture intends to discuss the expert assessment and aspects of its feedback. Educational programmes are also planned, taking into account the proposals set forth in the survey.
