A holi­stic under­stan­ding of health

One of the Beis­heim Foun­da­tion’s funding areas is ‘health’. How do you inter­pret this term?

We see health holi­sti­cally: it’s about physi­cal, mental and social well-being and not just the absence of illness. Health lays essen­tial ground­work so people can deve­lop their poten­tial and shape their own lives. That’s why we support projects that streng­then mental health and promote a healthy lifestyle.

You support lots of projects in the field of mental health. Is there an over­ar­ching stra­tegy that connects all these initia­ti­ves toge­ther?
Yes. We want to help people stay mentally healthy or be able to lead a good life despite health-rela­ted limi­ta­ti­ons. Our aim is to boost mental health at all stages of life – even during criti­cal tran­si­ti­ons that may be asso­cia­ted with increased mental strain. 

What are these criti­cal tran­si­ti­ons?
Criti­cal tran­si­ti­ons for young people include looking for an appren­ti­ce­ship. They also encom­pass start­ing a family and the asso­cia­ted chal­lenges, mid-life career change, reti­re­ment – as this entails losing a central pillar of your iden­tity – or the death of a part­ner in old age.

Can you give a speci­fic exam­ple?
We focus on projects that teach people about mental health, streng­then their own resour­ces and create support­ive envi­ron­ments for those affec­ted and their rela­ti­ves, at all stages of life. For exam­ple, we promote ‘malre­den’ (‘just talk’), a low-thres­hold service which gives lonely older people the oppor­tu­nity to simply talk to someone on the phone. 

Our aim is to boost mental health at all stages of life.

Thérèse Flücki­ger, Beis­heim Foundation

To what extent are your four funding areas of educa­tion, health, culture and sport intert­wi­ned?
The four funding areas emer­ged from our foundation’s purpo­ses. They are inde­pen­dent, but they can over­lap or comple­ment each other. We also support projects that contri­bute to two or more areas, such as Les Concerts du Coeur or Musik­Spi­tex. Both of these bring high-quality music expe­ri­en­ces to people with limi­ted mobi­lity. Les Concerts du Coeur runs concerts for resi­dents in faci­li­ties such as reti­re­ment homes and nursing homes, and Musik­Spi­tex plays perso­nal concerts for people within an indi­vi­dual context. Enga­ging with these orga­ni­sa­ti­ons not only allows us to promote cultu­ral parti­ci­pa­tion, but also mental well-being and social cohe­sion. It’s also nice that one of these projects comes from French-spea­king Switz­er­land and the other from German-spea­king Switzerland. 

What are Les Concerts du Coeur’s events like?

I had the oppor­tu­nity to attend a Les Concerts du Coeur perfor­mance in Valais once. I got goose pimp­les when I saw the older people, some with advan­ced demen­tia, bobbing along to the beat or even singing along: it was incre­di­bly touch­ing. The pianist and two singers, all profes­sio­nal musi­ci­ans, mainly played local folk songs at this concert to connect with their audi­ence, but there are many diffe­rent styles. The artists are trai­ned to work in this setting and they consciously inter­act with attendees. 

Society’s chal­lenges in terms of mental health are enorm­ous. Will you be expan­ding this area of focus even further in the future?

We opted for this focus area back in 2016 – when it was still a niche topic in the funding land­scape. This issue remains important, given the incre­asing levels of mental health issues in our society, and we will be conti­nuing our dedi­ca­ted commit­ment in this area. In doing so, we would like to become even more invol­ved in projects that have a cross-regio­nal or natio­nal impact or have the poten­tial to do so.

You also provide joint funding via foun­da­tion consor­tia.
We prefer to call them ‘alli­ances’. By colla­bo­ra­ting with other grant giving foun­da­ti­ons, we can pool resour­ces and exper­tise to jointly tackle socie­tal chal­lenges more effec­tively. Shared funding also crea­tes syner­gies and redu­ces the admi­nis­tra­tive burden for project owners. In prin­ci­ple, complex issues such as mental health can only be hand­led sustain­ably via colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with stake­hol­ders from various diffe­rent fields – acade­mia, civil society, poli­tics and business. 

What does an alli­ance look like?
A good exam­ple of a funding alli­ance is our part­ner­ship with other foun­da­ti­ons to support the Leaving Care centre of excel­lence and Care­leaver Schweiz, an orga­ni­sa­tion that assists care leavers. Care leavers are young people who have grown up in care homes or foster fami­lies and have to cope with tran­si­tio­ning to an inde­pen­dent life when they reach the age of majo­rity. The aims of the two orga­ni­sa­ti­ons are to provide equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and better gene­ral condi­ti­ons for care leavers during this chal­len­ging phase of life, as well as speci­fic assis­tance to create a support­ive envi­ron­ment that helps care leavers to boost their own resour­ces and reduce their mental strain. Some foun­da­ti­ons only support the centre of excel­lence, which also carries out advo­cacy work, while others only support Care­leaver Switz­er­land. The crucial thing is that, as a funding alli­ance, we all support the same project goals. 

The Beis­heim Foun­da­tion backs both large-scale programs for the gene­ral public and small initia­ti­ves for speci­fic target groups. What is your strategy?

By combi­ning the two, we hope to achieve the broa­dest possi­ble social impact. Certain projects are desi­gned for a large target group. They include ‘ensa’ cour­ses – a very broad-based program with a focus on early detec­tion, which is run by the Pro Mente Sana foun­da­tion. The mental health first aid cour­ses are aimed at laypeo­ple – from young people to adults – and were co-laun­ched by the Beis­heim Foundation.

And for small target groups?

Some, very speci­fic, target groups face parti­cu­lar chal­lenges. For exam­ple, we support two orga­ni­sa­ti­ons that assist child­ren and fami­lies with a parent suffe­ring from mental illness: the ‘Fonda­tion As’trame’, which opera­tes throug­hout French-spea­king Switz­er­land, and the ‘Insti­tut Kinder­seele Schweiz’ in German-spea­king Switz­er­land. Both support and advise affec­ted child­ren, young people and fami­lies during these diffi­cult phases of life. 

How do you evaluate the impact of these diffe­rent approa­ches?
We take an impact-orien­ted approach, which means that we closely moni­tor lots of projects, from the analy­sis of the chal­lenges to the lessons lear­ned, and utilise our know­ledge to support them. This also includes quali­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive methods for impact measu­re­ment, which are used at regu­lar inter­vals by our project part­ners. In colla­bo­ra­tion with other foun­da­ti­ons, we also offer free work­shops on impact-orien­ted project work.

What crite­ria does the Beis­heim Foun­da­tion use to decide whether to engage with a project on a long-term basis?
Three factors are decisive: social rele­vance, scala­bi­lity and sustainable impact. We’re inte­res­ted in whether a project has a natio­nal or natio­nal impact, how it reaches the target group and whether it’s sustainable in the long term. Inno­va­tive and scien­ti­fi­cally based approa­ches also play a role. 

What does a typi­cal funding part­ner­ship with you look like?
Our part­ner­ships are based on equality, dialo­gue and trans­pa­rency. Many projects involve perso­nal cont­act before the funding part­ner­ship starts, for exam­ple through a preli­mi­nary enquiry or a preli­mi­nary discus­sion on a project propo­sal. Once the funding has been appro­ved, there are regu­lar discus­sions, project visits or stee­ring groups, which vary depen­ding on the size and dura­tion of the project. If neces­sary, we also support our part­ners stra­te­gi­cally, connect them with other orga­ni­sa­ti­ons or open doors to other foundations.

The important thing is to remem­ber that, when it comes to complex issues, we really need ever­yone to get invol­ved if we want to have a broad-based socie­tal impact. Foun­da­ti­ons can help get things off the ground quickly and create an oppor­tu­nity to try things out.