The Philanthropist: Peter Buss, are you particularly attracted to hopeless causes?
Peter Buss: What a question! What do you mean by that?
Newspapers are dying out all around us; circulation figures for printed publications are shrinking on a daily basis. Yet you’ve decided to launch a new print-based product in spite of this?
It does seem a bit crazy, if I’m honest. But no, there’ll always be a readership for well-produced specialist magazines – and there’ll always be companies wanting to advertise in them because their target audience is well-defined. It’s the perfect pairing of readers and advertisers.
How did you come up with the idea?
My wife says that a newspaper always manages to crop up wherever I am and wherever I play a role in making decisions. She’s completely right: communication has been close to my heart at every company I’ve led. In years gone by, we only had access to print media, not the internet. And when we recently asked ourselves how we could reach out to people in the charitable sector, it was clear to us that we needed a specialist magazine.
But do you need a printed magazine?
Definitely. To me, the online sphere is still a bit like a theatre where the play is being performed behind a curtain: lots of people have no idea what’s going on. That’s especially the case for members of boards of trustees from the older generation who don’t have their mobiles glued to their hand 24/7. We need to reach out to them in the print sphere, and our magazine invites them to take a look behind the curtain. Tactile aspects are hugely important in this: it needs to be able to lie on a table, and people need to be able to take it at its word in the truest sense. Print media have a much stronger impact in this regard than volatile, digital journalism floating in the cloud.
Credibility is key to ensuring that this works. The digital platform StiftungSchweiz.com is behind the magazine: is The Philanthropist an advertising publication?
Yes, of course it is. But it’s advertising an idea, not a product. We want to make our readers aware of the digital world by providing content that shows people how digitalisation can benefit philanthropy – but also by revealing its negative side. I hope that our content makes people think and helps our readers to realise that you can use digital tools to do philanthropic deeds in a different way. It would be wonderful if the magazine played a role in helping the sector grow together and work more efficiently, too.

Digitalisation is opening up all kinds of new opportunities for philanthropy and it could really help make things more efficient.
Peter Buss
You launched Stiftungschweiz.ch at the end of September. Is the magazine linked to the platform?
There is a link, of course, but the magazine operates independently of the platform, both in terms of the technology and communications. And the subscription fee for the magazine is included within the subscription fee for the platform.
Why do we actually need a digital platform like StiftungSchweiz.ch that encompasses the entire philanthropic sector?
I think that there is a huge gulf at play. As far as charity is concerned, we have the luxury of innumerable individual areas of activity that function side by side while being utterly separate. As a result, everyone’s a philanthropist – or at least, they could be. We’ve got various options at our disposal. It’s probably less noticeable when I make a small private donation of 50 Swiss francs, say, than when someone gives three million Swiss francs, but the motivation behind it could be the same. Charities with their own funds to play with need project owners just as much as they need sponsors: nobody can have an effect on their own. And despite this, there’s often a lack of mutual comprehension. That’s why we want to break down these barriers and emphasise the shared aspects of philanthropy. This will boost the charitable sector as a whole and, above all, show that it’s fun to get involved in it.
How can the platform help with this?
One of the ways it helps is by providing digitally guided work processes and a host of useful information about the sector. Digitalisation is opening up all kinds of new opportunities for philanthropy and it could really help make things more efficient. For example, we’ve made it easier to pair up project owners looking for donations to finance their work with charities offering funds and private donors who want to finance these projects and organisations. And we’ve made it possible for people to request assistance online from every single registered charity in Switzerland with its own funds at its disposal. We’re working with highly qualified partners to construct a veritable online ecosystem. Our commitment can be summarised as philanthropy that does as much as possible with as little as possible; philanthropy that everyone can see and experience, and which makes people happy.
Lots of charities don’t even have a website …
… around 15 percent of charities in Switzerland that run on the basis of their own funds have an online presence.
Do you think it’s realistic to expect that they’ll make use of a digital service?
It’s a huge opportunity for us! Just because a charity doesn’t have a website doesn’t mean that they’ve turned their back on digitalisation. Some believe they can’t afford it or fear that they’d receive even more requests for assistance if people could find them online. We can use StiftungSchweiz.ch to get the ball rolling on this front. For example, every charity can use StiftungSchweiz.ch to run their own website, for free, and hugely reduce the number of requests for assistance they get as a result if they give people this information on their microsite.

Every single charity is now represented on the platform. Have you had any negative responses?
To date, the feedback has been exceptionally positive. There have been some questions, too, but negative responses are something we rarely hear. Every charity is free to expand and adapt their page themselves.
But what if a charity doesn’t want to be found at all because they don’t accept any requests for assistance whatsoever?
Then they can simply write ‘we do not respond to requests for assistance’ on their microsite. This information is hugely helpful because project owners know the situation right away, and we can draw the awareness of people making these requests to it, as well.
So that means that the platform also encourages transparency.
Charities need to have an interest in transparency, even in a formal sense, given that they operate in a tax-free environment. Their authority comes courtesy of their charitable status. This is, of course, reviewed by the supervisory authority, but this really isn’t enough. Charity work is a public asset; the public no longer want to be solely represented by the supervisory authorities. Plus, there’s a practical reason, too: transparency makes their work easier, boosts efficiency and reduces costs. When I explain what I do and why I do it, for example, this helps us to pair people up better.
And yet some people still have reservations?
Transparency reduces the power that boards of trustees can wield. When they make their decisions completely off their own bat, they can give one project 100,000 Swiss francs while giving another absolutely nothing. When their decisions are transparent, they also become traceable, and they need to provide the reasons behind them. This places limits on the decisions that they can make at their own discretion. Of course, when charities are dealing with their own funds, it is important that they have a bit of leeway: it’s the only way that they can be an important, effective counterpart to the state. They can kick-start developments and initiate things in areas where the state can’t or doesn’t want to get involved. And, in turn, this can create truly important things for society, which is why it’s even more important that this takes place as part of an open dialogue with society itself.
Is the platform itself a philanthropic project?
At the start it is, no doubt. But it should also finance itself one day, of course. That’s the only sensible approach: it lets its users decide what’s necessary.
Peter Buss began his professional career in 1985, as a self-employed lawyer based in Basel. He is founder and CEO of NonproCons AG, Basel, a firm offering management consulting and fundraising services for non-profit organisations, which he has run since 1992. He launched Philanthropy Services AG, Basel, and the first iteration of the online platform StiftungSchweiz.ch in 2013. This platform was re-launched at the end of September 2019 as a new version that encompassed the entire philanthropic sector. In addition, Philanthropy Services AG publishes a magazine, called The Philanthropist. With more than 30 years of professional experience, Peter Buss is a veritable expert on issues relating to managing and financing clubs and charities. He also works as a university lecturer and speaker, and has published numerous works, including the seminal work Fundraising – Grundlagen, System und strategische Planung. He co-founded Zurich’s Round Table of Philanthropy and the Verband Association Management Companies Schweiz amc.