Fundos patrimoniais: instrumento de democratização da política de proteção do patrimônio cultural

Abstract

The general scope of this work is to investigate the extent of the effectiveness of endowment funds – understood as universalities of assets and rights, mostly received from donations, which are mandatorily managed by a charity or a foundation, and invested in order to preserve the value of the main capital, generating recurring and predictable redemptions to financially support a specific purpose, cause or entity of public interest – in solving the problem of managing cultural heritage formally sheltered by the State. Therefore, a broad national and international bibliographic review was carried out, with emphasis on the one produced in the United States of America, regarding the evolution of the concept of cultural heritage; the emergence, premises, and current situation of the nonprofit sector; the role and characteristics of philanthropy in financing this field; and the definition, adjectives, and main controversies involving the studied instrument. In addition, empirical data already produced were consolidated and interviews were conducted that allowed, together with other sources, to reconstruct the sociopolitical process of regulating endowment funds in Brazil and the dynamics of inserting the instrument in the institutional agenda of IPHAN, executive agency at the federal level. The main conclusion obtained was that endowment funds are not exactly a financing mechanism for the specific public policy, but rather a way of democratizing the management of cultural heritage at the federal level, especially for the nonprofit sector, under the logic of public cooperation