THE KAVLI TRUST’S OWNERSHIP IS ALL ABOUT CREATING VALUE FOR GOOD PURPOSES
GOOD PURPOSES – AT HOME AND ABROAD:The Kavli Trust is a Norwegian public utility fund that supports research, culture and humanitarian work at home and abroad. The Trust was established in 1962 by Knut Kavli, son of the Kavli Group’s founder, Olav Kavli. Since 2008, the Kavli Trust has distributed approximately NOK 500 million for various purposes.
FOOD PRODUCTION WITH MEANING: The Kavli Trust derives an income from being the sole owner of the Kavli Group companies, a wholly-Norwegian billionaire group with food production companies in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Great Britain. In Norway, the Kavli Trust owns the O. Kavli and Q-Dairy companies, with known brand names like Kavli cream cheese, Kavli Caviar, Q-milk, Skyr, Korni and HaPå.
A DIFFERENT TYPE OF OWNER: The Kavli Trust in Norway represents a different type of unique ownership. For the Kavli Trust, ownership is about creating values that are distributed for good, charitable purposes. All profits not reinvested in the Group are paid as dividends to the Trust. At the same time, the ownership commits to the Trust contributing in the best possible way to the development of the Kavli Group.
INCREASED PAYOUTS: Grants from the Kavli Trust have increased steadily in recent years. In 2006, the Trust paid out NOK 6.2 million for good causes. In 2017, this was increased to NOK 82 million, and in 2018 NOK 125 million will be distributed. 60 percent of the allocations go to humanitarian work, 30 percent to research and 10 percent to culture. Geographically speaking, 60 percent is intended for the countries in which the Kavli Group operates, and the rest for various development projects in sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia, and Southeast Asia. By August 2018, the Trust was supporting a total of 78 ongoing projects that have received a total of NOK 171 million.
BOARD AND ADMINISTRATION: The Kavli Trust’s allocations are processed and determined by the Trust’s board. The current Chairman of the Board is Aksel Mjøs. Other board members are Solfrid Lind, Dag J. Opedal and Silvija Seres. The Kavli Trust’s Managing Director is Inger Elise Iversen.
THE KAVLI TRUST’S CULTURAL SUPPORT
Through our cultural support, the Kavli Trust wishes to support and promote young musical talents, and contribute to projects which allow more people in our society access to good cultural experiences, and the opportunity to culturally create and perform.
Development of young musical talents
The Trust wishes to increase recruitment to the Norwegian Symphony Orchestra and therefore support projects which provide the necessary experience for Norwegian music students. In addition to the collaboration the Kavli Trust has with Winterfestspill in Bergerstaden for Konstknekt, we currently support several Nordic talent development programmes such as the Young Artists Concert and the Young Voices Talent Programme and Youth Symphonies. In 2014, we supported the establishment of the Centre for Talent Development under the auspices of Barratt Due, and contributed to the establishment of the Bergen Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, a collaboration project with several talent development programmes, orchestras and tertiary music institutions in western Norway. The projects will give our young talents orchestral experience and in the long term ensure the recruitment of soloists and orchestra musicians to Norwegian symphony orchestras.
Our cultural support is aimed at children and youths
We want to give children and young people good musical experiences and collaborate with various music institutions in the Nordics and Great Britain, such as, for example, The Sage Gateshead in England. For several years, we have worked on the Oseana Friskunst-project in Os to better utilise resources in cultural centres, schools and municipalities. This has now become a national project in cooperation with Norske Kulturhus, where the goal is to include elementary and cultural schools in the already existing offerings at the cultural centres. For many years, we have been the main partner for several chamber music festivals such as the Winterfestspill in Bergstaden and Lofoten’s International Chamber Music Festival. In recent years, we have been among the primary sponsors of the Trondheim International Chamber Music Festival and their talent development programme.
Connecting projects
The goal is for the projects to mutually reinforce each other. We often connect our various partners and want to inspire and facilitate competence sharing. For this reason, we often support cultural and humanitarian dissemination projects. An example of this is the support we have given to Audun Myskja who has had successful results when using music to treat people with dementia. We now support Myskja’s work so that it is documented and made available on a large scale. The Kavli Trust would like to take the role of “birth helper” in projects that are initially difficult to finance. Our role is often the implementation and bridging for other funding. An example of this is Gulljazz, in which fellow enthusiast, Birgit Skogen, with startup funds from us, was able to establish Gulljazz as a side-festival at a nursing home in connection with Modejazz, Oslo Jazzfestival and Maijazz in Stavanger.
Social thematic cultural support
We want to provide good musical experiences to the elderly and to people with dementia. One example is the Bergen Festival Performances in which our support for the Festival Performance Collective ensures that quality musical events are brought to several of the city’s hospitals, nursing homes and elderly centres. We also buy 1000 tickets which we give to the Red Cross, Fattighuset, SOS barnebyer, Way Back and Robin Hood Huset, so that their users and companions can attend a festival performance event.
Other important societal challenges we support through our cultural contributions include inclusion work, especially for children and young people, and different types of cultural measures aimed at disadvantaged people. We would like to support projects that use music as an inclusion tool. These include Fargespill in several Norwegian cities, Kultur in old Oslo and the Norwegian Music Corps Association’s vacation offer, FeriePULSE. In the past, we have supported Nordnorsk Jazzenter’s establishment of “Flere Farger i Sommerland” in Bodø. Another example is KORET, an Oslo-based choir with a social and particularly relevant profile aimed at asylum reception in Oslo. We were also actively involved in Kari Saanum’s theatre performance about child poverty in Norway, “Alle har så mye” (Everyone has so much).
By working purposefully and with focus, the Kavli Trust can contribute to the realisation of important cultural goals, lower the threshold for bringing in good cultural experiences, and create and make culture accessible for everyone. We would like to cooperate with other entities so that we can jointly achieve better results and maximum returns for individuals, communities and society.