All over the world there are a multitude and diverse sources of financing creative and cultural activities. Certain creative-cultural activities generate positive externalities, which have to be next internalised by the state as the socially desirable level of the cultural-creative products is usually well above the level provided by and on the market. In such cases, public financing is required in order both to provide a larger amount of creative-cultural products and services, and to support also cultural operators. According to some authors, cultural and creative activities are affected by the Baumol-Bowen cost-disease. Other creative-cultural actors are aligned to market rules and do not require public financing (as is the case of architecture design). The paper aims to explain the importance of alternative financing sources designed such as to support the cultural and creative activities, such as sponsorship, patronage and philanthropy. The paper is also intending to assess the dimension and scale of giving for cultural-creative activities. The paper includes also the presentation of several examples of good practice from Europe.
