The Courier

Heart surgery Centre Salam, Sudan

© Contrasto / Marcello Bonfanti

A foundation is a private institution with legal personality, which owns assets that can be assigned for specific non-profit purposes.

Italian bank foundations

Within the panorama of European foundations Italian bank foundations are an extremely interesting case. Their grant distributions are extremely important, especially in the social and cultural fields. This is an auxiliary role to their respective European, governmental and local public policies. In certain territories their contributions are essential.

They were instituted in 1991 with the Amato/Carli Law that imposed the division between banks (which had to start a privatisation process) and foundations in two distinct legal entities. As a consequence, foundations with a large dimension have been created. These were initially identified as holding the entire stock of former public banks, but have been subsequently invited to be on the market.

These institutions operate in different modalities with a preference for grant-making in the classic fields of big foundations: education and research, art and culture, health and welfare. To these fields we can add, in certain cases, issues related to the environment and promotion of local development. Foundations work on the borderline between the private, public and civil sectors (i.e. the non-profit field). In fact, they generate profit from the first sphere and need to be able to dialogue and connect policies and resources with the second. The third sphere is their main field and in which they find their most important partners.

At least ten of these foundations have assets that exceed the threshold of €1 billion, while nearly 30 go beyond €100 million.

Ceilings per year are continuously increasing and go from €1 million for small foundations to almost €200 million for the MontePaschi, Cariplo, and Compagnia di San Paolo foundations, which are in the European top ten for assets and contributions. Consequently, if we consider the growing amount of money to be distributed in social, cultural and research projects with great autonomy and freedom of action, we can easily notice the crucial role played by foundations.

They are now developing into modern organisations with specific operational strategies, staffed with young, specialised personnel, with due transparency (through well managed, updated websites) of announcements and contributions that have been implemented. Normally evaluation methodologies and structures for calls for applications are based on those used by the European Commission.

A European way to philanthropy

Going through programme documents, the increasing will to create a stronger connection between the local and the international, global and European spheres is easily noticeable. The need to develop a European way for foundations originated at the European Foundations Centre (EFC), an international association of foundations and corporate founders, based in Brussels. It is dedicated to documenting the foundation landscape, strengthening the infrastructure of the sector and promoting cooperation at European level and around the world.

Since its foundation in 1989, the EFC’s main goals are to represent the interest of members (more then 200 foundations), not only donors and bank foundations but also charitable, scientific and cultural organisations and target governments, the European Union and international bodies.

Globalisation is making clear the necessity to value problems and opportunities on a supranational level and to organise programmes and specific processes about global issues on a local level.

In fact, since 2003 the EFC has promoted Europe in the World, a programme that aims to advocate and mobilise more leadership, collaboration and efforts for global development among foundations and in partnership with governments, multilateral institutions, business and NGOs. According to EFC, is important to persuade the ever growing number of European foundations to increase current resources – skills, knowledge, funding – for global issues and development on a sustainable basis

A more open territory of action

The Cassa di Risparmio Foundation in Bologna was the first to change its statute in order to allow funds for actions taking place out of its territory, especially in the Global South. This statute modification, in October 2000, was strongly advocated by the vice-president at that time, Giovanni Bersani. As a European Parliamentarian, he participated in many crucial phases of the Lomé Convention and development policies promoted by the European Union. Among other functions, he has been President of the EU-ACP Parliamentary Assembly, for which he is now honorary president.

Bersani went beyond the old principle that funds must be distributed in the foundations’ reference territory and that these subjects may stretch have responsibilities also towards far territories and peoples. This would have contributed to a common perspective of a real and sustainable peace.

Consequently foundations now have the possibility to operate in the development field and, especially in the last three to four years, many NGO programmes from the Global North and Global South have been promoted.

We have interviewed Gabriello Mancini, president of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Foundation, who said: “In the last four years we have worked especially with associations, depending on projects that have been proposed, but we have the intention to fund better and better quality actions. There is a need to target the real needs of these countries, possibly working in tune with the local institutions. In order to improve synergies and coordination, since 2004 we have approved, together with the region of Tuscany, a protocol of intentions to target projects that need funds. Among these we can remember the realisation of the heart surgery centre Salam in Sudan realised by Emergency, the centre Saving the children that offers medical assistance to more than 1,000 Palestinian children, or the mobile field hospital realised by the association Fatebenefratelli. But, as well as big actions, contributions are also delivered to local associations.”

There are more than 160 projects in ACP countries that have been funded during the last four years, for a financial commitment that exceeds €20 million. The main issues of these projects are education, infant vaccinations, attendance and cure of children with HIV/AIDS, creation of hospitals, sanitary structures and surgical specialised centres, and reservoirs for drinkable water and irrigation.

Some other foundations have realised projects in this field. Compagnia di San Paolo devoted attention to advanced training for developing countries, with courses organised by the ILO, Hydroaid, the International Water for Development Management Institute and the Higher European Cooperation and the Development School of the University of Pavia.

In 2004, the Cariplo Foundation has signed an action plan approving a new operative line that has been proposed in order to reduce the gap between the Global North and South. In 2005, 12 contributions for a total amount of €1 million have been allocated and the number of funded projects increased from 12 to 39 in 2006 with a total contribution of €3 million.

This participation can be increased. Positive perspectives can be seen in the answer of Mr. Mancini to our question: “What kind of coordination experiences are there among foundations in order to aid development?” He said: “We are working according to the explicit auspices of the Associazione delle Casse di Risparmio Italiane (ACRI) in order to ensure the possibility of implementing common actions in the field of international cooperation. Currently there are contacts with other important foundations in order to elaborate initiatives that I trust will produce positive results.”

We will see what happens.