Svenska kulturfonden, or officially Stiftelsen för utbildning och kultur på svenska i Finland sr., is a Finnish foundation founded to promote Swedish language, Swedish-speaking culture in Finland and education. The core mission of the foundation is to promote Finland as a bilingual country by contributing financial aid to things such as arts and non-profit organisations that in turn promote the Swedish-speaking culture and Swedish language in Finland.[1]
Mikaela Nylander has been the chairperson of the foundation since February 2020.[2] Svenska Kulturfonden was founded in and as of today functions as an umbrella-organisation for around 490 individual foundations. The foundation's owner is Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, that manages the foundation's properties and assets, and it is very close to the Swedish People's Party.[3] The party is the founder of Svenska Kulturfonden and nominates the board of the foundation.[4]
The foundation's contributions amount to approx. 36 million euros annually and it receives close to 8000 applications. In March 2020 the foundation launched a new type of grant for artists hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.[5]