Did you notice the campaign for the European Union over the last couple of weeks? If not, you are not alone. The European Commission is a legislator. Asking the Commission to also market Europe is like putting your legal department in charge of advertising - you will probably not gain much attention nor win over many hearts. This is an issue, because if there are only two events that make us feel European (Champions League and Eurovision), we can't expect a larger part of the population to identify and support the European idea. It should interest us, because if Europe was in people's hearts, Volt will eventually be on their ballots.

The idea

European Culture doesn't have to be created. It exists already as a mix of our 27 cultures and nationalities (read more about it here). I do see great projects where artists push a certain idea and topic, for example doing positive campaign posters for the alliance of french parties in the last snap elections. The idea even found a great follow up for last Europe day.

From time to time I have the chance to speak with either artists or potential donors and I usually ask if they would be interested in working on projects that make the general public feel more European. "With pleasure, if it's not too bureaucratic and not political" is the usual answer. I would therefore like Volt Europa to match-make the two and bring together sponsors and artists to work on projects that create a European sentiment in the population.

What does it mean concretely?

  1. Volt will have its internal "cultural" incubator (also a political experiment), seeking funding and awarding projects to artists.
  2. If we eventually create our EuPP and foundation, I would put the foundation in charge, because we do not need different entities all working on politics. The foundation will be for feeling European.
  3. It would mean that we're starting to treat "Culture" as something important and not only focus on topics like Defense or Technology. All of them need to be defended and I believe building up an incubator for cultural projects will also attract members beyond our classical membership - interested less in the political parts of Volt. Maybe it will also help increase our female membership.

Timeline

It depends on our capacity to fundraise and our networking, especially in the cultural sector. I would also like members and chapters to be able to propose ideas, so there should be an easy to way to submit proposals for evaluation along with criteria along which to classify them. I believe we can iterate from something that works quickly towards a more professional system, so the sooner we begin collecting ideas, the better.

I see the role of the Co-Presidents in networking and reaching out to potential donors and artists. Once we have a pitch, I would be happy to kickstart fundraising and trying to present ideas to artists.

How do you measure success?

This is relatively easy to measure:

  1. Number of contacts into the cultural sector (both artists and potential donors)
  2. Amount of donations received for cultural projects
  3. Number of evaluated ideas submitted by members
  4. Number of projects realized
  5. (Bonus) Impact on Gender Balance of Volt Europa

We shouldn't ignore how much money is being invested into making the European project fail (just one example: 150M€). I believe there are just as many potential supporters that want the European project to succeed. Let's find them and provide a platform for them to support the European idea.



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