Caisse des Dépôts, a renewed commitment

For over two years, Caisse des Dépôts' support has enabled Culture for Children to promote access to art and heritage for young audiences. By supporting projects such as Heritage and Creativity, Culture for Children actively contributes to the artistic awakening and inclusion of children in vulnerable situations.

In this interview, Claire Visentini tells us about the values that guide this commitment and Caisse des Dépôts' desire to be a long-term patron of the arts and heritage, in the service of cultural transmission and equal opportunities.

Claire Visentini, you are Director of Philanthropy at Caisse des Dépôts. Can you tell us a few words about the actions you are carrying out within the group?

For more than 40 years, Caisse des Dépôts' corporate philanthropy has been supporting the cultural sector as part of our institution's public interest mission. Culture is a powerful vector for social and territorial cohesion, which is a major strategic priority for our Group, alongside the ecological transition, which our patronage is also increasingly supporting. In concrete terms, our patronage policy focuses on 3 cultural sectors: classical music and dance, historically linked to our support for the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, which we have owned since the 1970s, and, for some years now, architecture and landscape, the challenges of which resonate closely with Caisse des Dépôts' role as a sustainable land developer.

Since 2022, Caisse des Dépôts has been one of the major financial supporters of Culture fort Children. Why have you chosen to commit to us? 

The project proposed by Culture pour l'Enfance, a benchmark player in terms of its expertise, was promising and in line with the values we espouse in our support for projects dedicated to young audiences, particularly around equal access to information and knowledge, as well as inclusion. Through an educational and pedagogical programme that is also inclusive, your Heritage and Creativity: architecture and gardens project gives children an insight into a diversity of natural, non-built and built heritage, and therefore raises their awareness of the heritage issues they encounter in their daily lives. What's more, your project offers an innovative and original approach, particularly in terms of its multi-site nature, whether at the Musée Jacquemart-André or the Hôtel de Caumont. It was therefore quite natural for our committee of experts to lend their support to your project in 2022, and they recently decided to renew it for a further two years.

Caisse des Dépôts supports our Heritage and Creativity: architecture and gardens project, which every year enables 3,900 children in vulnerable situations to discover cultural sites such as the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris or the Hôtel de Caumont in Aix-en-Provence. Why does Caisse des Dépôts want to support educational projects providing access to cultural heritage? 

Caisse des Dépôts' patronage pays particular attention to equality and accessibility to knowledge and culture. In particular in its Architecture & Landscape programme, the area dedicated to ‘young public’ projects aims to encourage children to learn about architectural and landscape heritage from an early age. Access to cultural heritage projects enable children to become aware of the cultural heritage that surrounds them and that belongs to them. This sense of belonging can then help shape the future citizens they will become. What's more, today's architectural and landscape heritage is a major issue, particularly in terms of urban and environmental issues. Access to and ownership of this heritage can help to raise awareness of these issues at an early stage. 
  

In 2025, you decided to make a long-term commitment to Culture for Children as part of a multi-year agreement. Why was it important to make your support sustainable? 

Caisse des Dépôts' sponsorship is a long-term initiative, generally lasting 5 years, to give projects a long-term perspective and enable them to be structured and developed under the right conditions. After several years of annual support for Culture pour l'enfance, this time we felt it would be more appropriate to extend our support over a longer period of two years. The aim of this multi-year support is to enable Culture pour l'enfance to plan more calmly and effectively for the future of the Heritage and Creativity: Architecture and Gardens project, which is particularly important in the current economic climate. This longer term also reflects the relationship of partnership and trust that binds us to Culture pour l'enfance.
 

How do you work with the project leaders you support to ensure that your support has a coherent impact?  

Caisse des Dépôts' sponsorship support is designed to be local and based on human contact. We make a point of meeting project leaders several times during the course of our support, of travelling to see the progress of their project or to take part in key events, of advising them in certain decisive phases, in order to support them both financially and in human terms. We consider this extra-financial commitment to be an integral part of our support, and just as important as our financial support.

We also endeavour to give visibility to project sponsors by communicating regularly on our social networks, in the media and internally with our employees, who we regularly invite to events organised by our sponsors. It is important for Caisse des Dépôts' sponsorship to have a link with the winners and to be able to promote them and their project as much as possible. 

🙏 We would like to extend a huge thank you to Claire Visentini and Caisse des Dépôts for their confidence and renewed support. Caisse des Dépôts' commitment illustrates the importance of lasting partnerships to make culture accessible to all children, whatever their living conditions. Thanks to this support, every year thousands of children can discover exceptional heritage sites and take part in enriching artistic experiences.