This four-month research project explores transnational cultural policy transfer, focusing specifically on arts funding in the U.S. and in the Czech Republic. It evolved as a reaction on the tendency of Czech arts managers and cultural policy makers to learn from the American way of arts funding and wide-spread efforts to bring more private and corporate funds into the Czech arts and cultural sector to replace dependency on the Government funding. However, these efforts have not achieved significant success so far. It is a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with a range of individuals representing the arts sector, foundations and other funding and advocacy bodies. The project explores how the arts funding operates at ground level within the cultural sector in Pittsburgh and what impact it has on individuals and arts organizations. Particularly, the role of influential individuals and their social connections is being investigated as a critical driver of allocating funds. The project also explores negative side effects which the Pittsburgh model of arts funding generates and briefly questions the role of the history in the way the arts funding works today. Policy transfer as a method of policy creation in the arts and cultural sector is questioned with regard to the findings of this primary research. The result of the project should be a journal article discussing the idea of lesson drawing where the Czech Republic is put into position of a learner and the Pittsburgh arts funding model serves as a provider.