In addition to grant money, Kone Foundation has other means to support you, too. This is what we call Grants+. Grants+ include e.g. training, mentoring, and possibilities to use the foundation’s premises. Kalle Korhonen, our Head of Research Funding, writes about the ideas behind Grants+ services.

In addition to grant money, the foundation has other means to support you, too. This is what we call Grants+. As you can see in the instructions for our grantees, Grants+ include training, mentoring, and possibilities to use the foundation’s premises.

But why does the foundation offer support in addition to funding? Grants+ is based on the idea that supporting grantees in other ways besides funding is useful for the grantees’ work. The idea is not to give advice to the bold grantees in their own academic or artistic work: they know best how to do it. But the foundation can offer other services during the grant period; this could be something you might not think about otherwise. Grants+ is never obligatory: you do not have to worry about support turning into obligations, or that you would have to participate into pause gymnastics.

Grants+ can also be called “capacity building” or “capacity development”, and it has a fairly long tradition in the work of foundations and NGO’s. Research on the topic is available, and some of it concerns research funding. To us it seems evident that Grants+ is something that our grantees find relevant. Moreover, Grants+ can be useful for their colleagues not supported at the moment by the foundation.

The idea is not totally new at Kone Foundation: instead, it has evolved organically. Since the founding of the Saari artistic residence in 2008, activities have been organised for the residents. Kone Foundation started to provide its research grantees with communications training, a collaboration between foundations, in 2015, and the Chamber, which can be booked by our grantees, was opened at the same time. After the foundation’s Helsinki office moved to the Lauttasaari Manor, the Grants+ activities have expanded to some extent.

As the Twenties begin, our Grants+ include different kinds of elements. We increase our counseling for projects funded by us. The Chamber in South Central Helsinki and the community space in the Red Villa in Lauttasaari can be booked by our grantees. On some Fridays, you can participate in co-working at the Lauttasaari Manor. Our communications training for researchers and our mentoring programme will continue. There will be a study circle on communications for artists. All the projects funded by the foundation can propose to organise a Bold Initiative event at the Lauttasaari Manor – a few can take place each year. In addition, researchers can apply for a two-month residency at the Saari Manor.