About
Charitable organization founded in 2010. Our core activities focus on supporting active ageing, promoting children’s participation in amateur sports, addressing social orphanhood, and fostering international humanitarian cooperation and development of Russian regions through culture.
Our ambition is to target areas with little or no alternative resources for social development and support.
Only active participation and individual enthusiasm can change things, strengthen social networks and contribute to local development.
It is such people that we try to identify and support.
We believe that cultural initiatives could be key drivers in the sustainable development of local communities. They connect people, engage them in productive dialogue, and effect change, which creates a stimulating environment for life and work. This is precisely why the flagship culture programme of the Timchenko Foundation is “The Cultural Mosaic of Small Towns and Villages” – an award programme of funding and support designed to activate and unite local communities in small towns (with a population of up to 50,000 people) and rural areas through socio-cultural projects.
The first grants competition was held in 2014. Over 4000 applications for funding have been received from across Russia, ranging from initiatives in food, music, and traditional crafts, to landscape festivals, theatre tours, and exhibitions, as well as learning and outreach activities. So far, 327 projects from 65 regions have been granted a total of $2,4 million in support.
By 2015, “The Cultural Mosaic” had evolved into an integrated programme offering financial support and expertise for implementing local socio-cultural initiatives. We are striving to create opportunities in small towns and rural areas. This ambitious goal is achieved through two major strands of our work: development of territories and their communities. All our programmes engage local community leaders in socio-cultural activities, diversify the cultural offer and improve the overall tourism appeal of the area.
We support projects, which in the long term have the potential to grow into sustainable centers for socio-cultural development committed to improving the quality of life in the area and empowering local communities. The main focus of these community culture hubs is to unlock the potential of an area by building on its unique strengths and resources. This is a gradual process, which draws on knowledge and experience accumulated by local institutions and their teams through training and learning activities facilitated by the Foundation.
Our programmes facilitate a project-based approach through which the culture hubs. develop from a project proposal into a form of institutional activity. In the initial stage, we focus on the financial and socio-cultural sustainability of a project. A potential hub needs to engage active citizens and local community leaders into cultural and social activity. The second stage centres on developing collaborative networks in the area with various partners joining forces to achieve shared objectives. The final stage sees those most promising and successful practices being institutionalized. Such programmes often have an impact on neighbouring territories, stimulating project activity and inducing cross-town and cross-regional partnerships.
Enabling a culture hub to become sustainable within a community requires time. However, we are already starting to see the transformational effects of the local cultural practices, supported by the Foundation in the past, on the small towns and villages. These new socio-cultural centers are becoming launchpads for other projects in the area, sharing their knowledge and experience with local partners. Working closely with communities, they are proving to successfully integrate disparate activities into a strategic vision for territory’s development. In many instances, these centers have become a source of expertise for local governments.
The Foundation is committed to boosting regional expertise and takes an active role in building professional networks within local communities. In 2017, we supported the establishment of an independent “Advisory Committee on Small Towns and Territories”, which aims to protect and promote their interests and unique strengths.
