Carla Fonseca: Deconstructing Corporate Involvement in Arts and Culture
16 / 7 / 2019

“Deconstructing Corporate Involvement in Arts and Culture” by economist and public manager Carla Fonseca from Brazil, is the second of three videos by international experts who were invited to the first workshop on Arts and Culture Entrepreneurship (ACE). The ACE program was launched in 2018 by AFAC, in partnership with Drosos Foundation, and supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.

Fonseca attempts to deconstruct the multiple facets of companies’ involvement in arts and culture, laying out the different reasons for this involvement, as well as the criteria that these companies would use for their involvement in this sector, whether in sponsorships or as part of their corporate social responsibility programs. What do companies look for when investing in arts and culture? What is the impact of technology and globalization in this respect? Fonseca addresses these questions and more in a 5-minute video that takes South America, and more specifically Brazil, as a backdrop.


Carla Fonseca is an Economist and Public Manager from Fundacao Getulio Vargas. A professor and coordinator of courses in Brazil and Argentina, she led innovation projects for multinationals for 15 years, in Latin America and Europe.

The ACE program fosters a collective space for reflection on sustainability and is designed to inspire, invigorate and strengthen small and medium cultural institutions, based and working in the Arab region, and whose initiatives engage with communities. Eight arts and culture institutions participate in each cycle of the program and benefit from three extensive workshops, training and one-on-one mentoring in the areas that contribute to more sustainable organizations: communications and storytelling, resources mobilization and fundraising, case studies, peer-to-peer learning and exchange, strategic planning, as well as concepts of design thinking, startups, and the different business models that they can adopt. The program further offers an incentive grant for each participating institution to implement an innovation activity aimed at improving their institutional resilience.