The institutional grant for culture is a discretionary grant intended for the City of Helsinki's subsidiaries. The application period for institutional grants for culture for the year 2026 is from 25 March to 25 April 2025 at 16.00.
City of Helsinki institutional grants for sports and culture are primarily awarded to Helsinki Group enterprises that have a formal relationship with the City. Operators within this formal relationship should, in the first instance, be City operators. Companies, foundations, associations and other communities that the City has authority over are steered by the Helsinki Group. Operators within the scope of institutional grants for sports and culture must clearly distinguish themselves from other comparable actors in Helsinki.
The application period for institutional grants for the year 2026 is open from 25 March to 25 April 2025 until 16.00.
The grants must preferably be applied for by using the institutional grant form in the e-service for grant applications. You can fill in your application by logging into your e-services account and navigating to ‘Hae avustusta’ (Apply for grant) on the left side of this page. You can find the login link in the upper right corner of the page. The title of the form is ‘Liikunta, laitos- ja säätiöavustukset’ (Sports, institutions and foundation grants), but you use the same form to apply for institutional grants for culture.
In exceptional situations, you can also submit your grant application to the City of Helsinki Register Office at: City of Helsinki Register Office, Culture and leisure/Sports, P.O. Box 10, 00099 CITY OF HELSINKI (Visiting address: City Hall, Pohjoisesplanadi 11–13). Applications submitted to the register office must arrive by 15.00 on the due date.
The applicant must attach mandatory attachments to the application form in order for the application to be processed. The mandatory attachments to the institutional grant application are:
- Action plan and budget (for the year that the application applies to)
- Financial statements (last confirmed)
- Annual report (last confirmed)
- Audit report or performance audit report (last confirmed)
- In order to improve the predictability of the budget proposal of the City of Helsinki, the recipients of institutional grants are required to submit a three-year action plan and an associated budget in connection with submitting their grant application.
The final decision on awarding institutional grants is made by the Culture and Leisure Committee’s Culture and Library Sub-committee. The aim is to make the decisions in December. All grant applicants are sent the grant decision with appeal instructions by post.
Grants are paid in accordance with the grant decisions in four instalments using the payment details provided by the grant recipient.
Conditions for the use of the grant
All cultural grants are subject to the general grant allocation guidelines of the City of Helsinki, as well as the grant allocation principles of the Culture and Leisure Division.
- Shared grant allocation principles of the Culture and Leisure Division (Link leads to external service) pdf)
- General grant allocation guidelines of the City of Helsinki 28 October 2019 (Link leads to external service) pdf, in Finnish)
The person or entity to whom the grant is paid is responsible for the use and reporting of the use of the grant.
The grant can only be used for the purpose stated in the grant decision. If the grant decision does not specify the purpose, the grant must be used for the purpose stated in the application. The city has the right to reclaim the grant in part or in full in accordance with the terms and conditions.
The recipient is not allowed to use the grant for fundraising or for business and investment expenditure, or to increase its financial assets or any other long-term investments.
The recipient of a grant must arrange its accounting and auditing in the manner required by law and so that the use of the grant can be monitored based on the accounts.
The recipient must provide the City of Helsinki with the information the city deems necessary for processing the grant application, awarding the grant and monitoring its use, free of charge. The party awarding the grant has the right to audit the accounts and administration of the applicant/recipient and perform other audits regarding its activities as necessary.
The grant recipient must notify the City of Helsinki of significant changes that affect the use of the grant without delay, by contacting the personnel handling the cultural grants. See the contact details for handling cultural grants.(Link leads to external service)
The recipient undertakes to investigate the background of all suppliers used in the activities and to purchase services only from responsible operators who meet their social obligations.
See the general instructions in the Guidance and support section(Link leads to external service) and contact the grant coordinators(Link leads to external service) as necessary.