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StiftungSchweiz
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Having an impact, together

A consor­tium of eight grant giving foun­da­ti­ons has had a stake in StiftungSchweiz for a year now. This commit­ment reflects their desire to not just go along with the digi­ta­li­sa­tion of phil­an­thropy as passive obser­vers: instead, they want to play a role in actively shaping it.
What is the moti­va­tion behind taking this step? We intro­duce the consor­tium and its members.

‘Nobody knows how “big data” is going to impact our sector, but one thing is clear: data will play a vital role. As a result, StiftungSchweiz is a key test­ing ground, a place where we can jointly see what helps us as foun­da­ti­ons – and what we want to avoid. We don’t want StiftungSchweiz to be a play­ground for foun­da­tion nerds. Instead, we want it to inspire and enthuse large numbers of foundations.’

Kars­ten Timmer
Mana­ging Direc­tor, Arca­num Stiftung


‘Strong digi­tal phil­an­thropy opens up huge amounts of poten­tial for boos­ting trans­pa­rency and forging the ideal part­ner­ships between foun­da­ti­ons and funding part­ners. Our ambi­tion is to help support this trend and create a wealth of oppor­tu­ni­ties that can be effec­tively disco­vered and exploi­ted. We hope small foun­da­ti­ons, above all, will actively get invol­ved to make their work more impactful.’

Lukas von Orelli
Direc­tor, Velux Stiftung


‘Colla­bo­ra­tion is key to boos­ting the impact wrought by phil­an­thropy. That’s why the Ernst Göhner Foun­da­tion belie­ves in ensu­ring projects and orga­ni­sa­ti­ons are stron­gly networked and is dedi­ca­ted to inter­di­sci­pli­nary dialo­gue within the nonpro­fit sector. We have no doubt that digi­tal tools can play a key role in this endea­vour. As far as StiftungSchweiz goes, we hope the plat­form can work with stake­hol­ders to deve­lop these tools and try them out in prac­tice – so we can have a bigger impact, together.’

Patri­cia Kopp
Respon­si­ble for educa­tion and science at the Ernst Göhner Foundation


We are commit­ted to digi­tal phil­an­thropy because, in our role as society’s risk finan­cer, we want to play a part in cons­truc­ting a shared data space that adds value for the sector and society. Along­side speci­fic possi­ble uses for grant giving foun­da­ti­ons and project owners, stiftungschweiz.ch can also serve as a central commu­ni­ca­tion plat­form to refine and grow the percep­tion and importance of the sector.

Pascale Vonmont
CEO/Director, Gebert Rüf Stiftung


‘Boos­ting trans­pa­rency at light­ning speed – and digi­tally, to boot. StiftungSchweiz is leading by exam­ple and laun­ching the “match.com” of phil­an­thropy. We wish it every success and hope it makes some successful pairings.’

Fleur Jaccard
Mana­ging Direc­tor, Age-Stiftung


‘Digi­ta­li­sa­tion is not an option but a neces­sity – and that goes for foun­da­ti­ons, too. It offers major bene­fits, such as broa­der reach, which, in turn, rein­forces a foundation’s presence and networks. Beyond this, it makes admi­nis­tra­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion more effi­ci­ent and simpli­fies colla­bo­ra­tion and coali­ti­ons when both finan­cing and imple­men­ting projects. All told, this enables a foundation’s purpose to be put into prac­tice better. It bols­ters the sector as a whole, not just indi­vi­dual foun­da­ti­ons. We would like the foun­da­tion sector to use the oppor­tu­ni­ties offe­red by digi­ta­li­sa­tion in an agile way.’

Martina Ventu­rini
Mana­ging Direc­tor, Minerva Foundation


‘Digi­ta­li­sa­tion is beco­ming an incre­asingly inevi­ta­ble part of our work and our daily lives. Digi­tal solu­ti­ons boost effi­ci­ency, reduce admi­nis­tra­tive costs and, when paired with strong manage­ment tools, can under­pin swift decis­i­ons. We hope that Switzerland’s foun­da­ti­ons can take as unani­mous a stance as possi­ble in sharing their expe­ri­en­ces on a single platform.’

Hans Rainer Künzle
Chair of the Board of Trus­tees of the Green Leaves Educa­tion Foundation


‘Digi­ta­li­sa­tion is chan­ging how we inter­act as a society, how we commu­ni­cate and colla­bo­rate, how we engage in public deba­tes. Foun­da­ti­ons are right in the thick of these trends, whether they want to be or not: they will be forced to shift more of their acti­vi­ties to the digi­tal space moving forward. Within this process, digi­ta­li­sa­tion does not just impact their opera­tio­nal endea­vours. Instead, it hits at the very heart of how foun­da­ti­ons func­tion – from requi­re­ments rela­ting to trans­pa­rency and legi­ti­macy to the hand­ling and usage of data, right through to ways of attrac­ting new funding part­ners and inte­gra­ting target groups into their work. We are getting invol­ved in this field because complex socie­tal chal­lenges can no longer be over­come by indi­vi­dual stake­hol­ders on their own. Rather, it requi­res civil society, busi­nesses, acade­mia, poli­ti­ci­ans and admi­nis­tra­tion to come toge­ther. Digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies faci­li­tate new forms of colla­bo­ra­tion, ther­eby gene­ra­ting a ‘coll­ec­tive impact’ and incre­asing the effects of the funds deployed by indi­vi­dual foun­da­ti­ons. We hope that foun­da­ti­ons can work more closely at a stra­te­gic level to jointly achieve grea­ter influence, that we can move away from ad-hoc inter­ven­ti­ons and towards syste­ma­tic approa­ches, and that colla­bo­ra­tion and, its more advan­ced form, co-crea­tion become more common methods.

Andrew Holland
Mana­ging Direc­tor Merca­tor Foun­da­tion Switzerland


StiftungSchweiz is committed to enabling a modern philanthropy that unites and excites people and has maximum impact with minimal time and effort.

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