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45 million euros for culture: Rural regions on the move!
On June 18, 2025, 30 creative projects were announced in Barnim to promote culture and democracy in rural areas.
45 million euros for culture: Rural regions on the move!
On June 18, 2025, an important project to promote culture in rural regions of Germany was presented in Berlin. The “Aller.Land” program focuses on strengthening democracy and social cohesion through community cultural activities. A total of 30 regional cultural projects are supported with a total funding amount of 45 million euros - that's 1.5 million euros per project. The Ministry of Culture and Media (BKM), in collaboration with other institutions, is ensuring the implementation of this ambitious plan, which runs until 2030. Barnim reports on the celebratory announcement, at which important participants such as Wolfram Weimer, the Minister of State for Culture, and Silvia Breher, the Parliamentary State Secretary, were present.
A central goal of the funding program is to involve local people. The focus here is on citizen participation and the development of joint concepts for innovative cultural projects. Among other things, community music festivals are organized and empty buildings are converted into meeting places. In addition, artists are invited to actively shape local culture.
Initiatives for rural areas
The program “Aller.Land – shaping together. Strengthening structures.” was launched in 2023 to improve the cultural offerings in structurally weak rural regions. According to Kulturstaatsminister.de, 97 regions received funding of 40,000 euros for concept development last year. This support was a first step towards developing sustainable and participatory models for cultural projects. In this model, the focus was on involving committed local people.
It is interesting that the concept of supporting rural culture has not just been discussed since yesterday. A dialogue process was started in Baden-Württemberg in 2018 under the initiative of Minister Theresia Bauer. The focus was on promoting regional cultural actors and creating networking structures in order to better take the needs of the rural population into account. Baden-Württemberg notes that cultural identity and specific needs in rural regions differ significantly from urban patterns.
Support for creative projects
The funded projects are selected by independent expert juries, which evaluate the proposals according to criteria such as regional networking and citizen participation. This shows that the value of culture in rural areas lies not only in the organization of events, but also in the active participation of the community.
The “Aller.Land” program will significantly strengthen the cultural infrastructure in Germany. Another reason for anticipation is the fact that a total of up to 69.4 million euros will be made available for innovative cultural concepts by 2030. The encouraging development shows that rural areas play a high role in cultural policy and that citizens can actively shape their living environment.