Launching Kaikukortti in your locality
A locality, like a municipality or a city, or a subregion/region can pilot or permanently establish Kaikukortti activities only through cooperation with the Kaikukortti support and development service. This is best achieved by establishing a small local preparatory working group or work pair including an employee or employees from both the local cultural sector and the local social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector.
It is important that both the cultural operators and the actors in the social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector designate a person or people to prepare for the pilot. This enhances the shared ownership in Kaikukortti among the sectors.
Remember to contact the Kaikukortti support and development service as early in the game as possible when planning to launch Kaikukortti in your locality! Kaikukortti pilot projects are always prepared together with the support and development service.
“Why should we launch Kaikukortti in our locality?”
Culture belongs to everyone, but not everyone has the financial resources to participate in cultural services. Poverty is a problem that perhaps isn’t discussed enough.
Tool for promoting equality and wellbeing
Kaikukortti is a concrete and easy tool for promoting equality, accessibility and health and wellbeing by means of culture.
Kaikukortti can be utilized as a way to steer funding allocated to culture towards activities that are accessible to everyone and not just the wealthier parts of the population.
Kaikukortti responds effectively to the new Municipal Cultural Activities Act. Kaikukortti is also mentioned in the TEAviisari benchmarking tool for municipal health promotion work. The aim is that Kaikukortti can serve as one of the tools for bringing culture into, for example,
- municipal wellbeing reports
- regional cultural wellbeing plans
- municipal wellbeing and health indicators
- the work of municipal and regional working groups for the promotion of wellbeing and health.
Kaikukortti can also be utilized in equality plans.
Kaikukortti brings along concrete structures for cooperation between the social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector and the cultural field.
Advantages for actors in the social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector
From the viewpoint of actors in the social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector, Kaikukortti can support the clients’ social rehabilitation and enhance their wellbeing, inclusion and actorship.
For actors in the cultural field, being engaged in Kaikukortti activities is an opportunity to, for example, reach new audiences and promote accessibility. The network includes more than 200 different small and big, public and private cultural venues that have joined the activities as a gesture of goodwill. Lately many sports organizations have also joined in.
Kaikukortti is a registered trademark owned by the Culture for All Service / association Yhdenvertaisen kulttuurin puolesta ry. We have tried to model the process of launching the activities so that it would be as easy as possible for new localities. The localities get ready materials and practical support from the Kaikukortti support and development service for launching and maintaining the activities. Kaikukortti is being developed into a digitally readable form in order to, for example, facilitate the compilation of statistics.
We hope that the cultural field will turn its eyes to the problem of poverty and the social welfare and healthcare sector and municipal wellbeing and health promotion sector will turn their eyes to cultural wellbeing. With the help of Kaikukortti, we can also fix our attention to cultural rights.
Growing interest in Kaikukortti!
Kaikukortti is in use in more than 30 localities and the card can be used in all the Kaikukortti localities. The integrated model has many advantages. The Kaikukortti national guideline is based on equality and the right of the focus group to participate in our common cultural life. The partners commit to the common operating principles, and the Kaikukortti activities thus remain clear also from the customer’s point of view.
Launching Kaikukortti activities is easy
The Kaikukortti support and development service has published a guide for piloting Kaikukortti activities and it supports new localities in testing and adopting the Kaikukortti system. Clear steps have been laid out for a Kaikukortti pilot.
The Kaikukortti support and development service also produces materials connected to the activities, such as Kaikukortti model templates, national customer brochures, introductory materials for employees and Kaikukortti manuals for the issuers of the card and the cultural venues. The graphic elements and InDesign templates of Kaikukortti’s visual design can be obtained free of charge from the Kaikukortti support and development service for the purpose of producing local Kaikukortti communications material.
Guide for piloting and adopting Kaikukortti activities (in Finnish) [DOCX]
Guide for piloting and adopting Kaikukortti activities (in Finnish) [PDF]
(Original name in Finnish: Kaikille kulttuuria Kaikukortilla – Opas Kaikukortin kokeiluun ja käyttöönottoon)
Instructions and ideas for piloting and adopting Kaikukortti activities can be found especially in Chapter 4 of the guide (in Finnish).
Steps of Kaikukortti pilot
- Kaikukortti introduction for the interested area/municipality
- Local working group
- Training for local working group
- Initial workshop for the interested actors in the social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector and in the cultural field
- Meeting and agreements with the actors in the pilot project
- Initial work on local statistics
- Printing the Kaikukortti cards and producing local communications material
- Introductory session for employees of organizations in the Kaikukortti network
- Issuing of cards begins
- Local feedback meetings and questionnaires
Next step: Permanent maintenance of Kaikukortti activities
Costs of Kaikukortti
We have tried to design the model for coordinating and maintaining Kaikukortti activities to be as light as possible. In practice the costs are caused by the working hours that go into preparing the piloting and maintaining the activities, and by the production of communications material. At least so far the participating cultural venues have not been compensated for the tickets and course places acquired with the Kaikukortti card.
The organizations should reserve partial working time for 1–2 persons for a 3-6 month preparing period. They should reserve also during the pilot phase working time from at least one person.
When the Kaikukortti model is adopted after the pilot, the required working time will decrease. But ultimately, the required working time depends on how much the given locality wants to invest in the system and the possibilities it offers. In addition to the working time, some reasonable costs are caused by translations and the printing of the Kaikukortti communications material, for example, 1 000–4000 euros depending on the size of the locality.
Piloting Kaikukortti – How to take it from here?
A municipality, subregion or even an entire region can establish its own Kaikukortti network. A regional social welfare and healthcare joint authority can take part in the coordination.
Kaikukortti can act as part of municipal or regional efforts to enhance equality among is residents. Even though a Kaikukortti pilot can be lighter to prepare geographically within one municipality, we encourage to also consider the option of a pilot at subregional or regional level. On the other hand, after the pilot phase it is possible to expand the system to other nearby municipalities.
The responsibility of coordinating Kaikukortti pilot projects in practice and maintaining the network locally is always local. The role of the Kaikukortti support and development service is to provide training for the locally responsible persons and mainly remote support with piloting and maintaining the activities, and to participate in the local development work, such a feedback meetings.
Committing to the activities
Committing to the Kaikukortti national guideline is a precondition for being in the network and issuing the card. In the Kaikukortti pilots, the persons locally responsible for the Kaikukortti activities make agreements with the individual Kaikukortti partners for the duration of the pilot phase.
If and when the activities continue after the pilot, new agreements with the participating local actors are not needed, but agreements do need to be made with any new partners. Committing to the Kaikukortti national guideline is still a precondition for being part of the network. In practice, the partners commit to following the guideline by, for example, having their names listed in the local Kaikukortti brochure and on the local Kaikukortti website.
Two types of agreements are made within the Kaikukortti system. The localities enter a partnership agreement with the Kaikukortti support and development service. The purpose is to ensure that the Kaikukortti activities are nationally consistent and effective and that the localities get support in coordinating the activities.
Secondly, the parties responsible for the Kaikukortti activities in a locality enter agreements with the individual Kaikukortti partners for the duration of the pilot. Committing to the national Kaikukortti guideline is a precondition for being in the network. If and when the activities continue after the pilot, new agreements with the participating local actors are not needed, but agreements do need to be made with any new partners.
Who to engage?
The parties responsible for the Kaikukortti locally put together the local network. Usually a network consists of a broad range of public actors in the social welfare, healthcare and wellbeing sector and the cultural field. It is part of the Kaikukortti principles that a local Kaikukortti network must also include an actor or actors from the third sector at least as issuers of the card and as participating cultural/sports venues and communities.