Rese­arch and direct assistance

What were the main reasons for setting up a foundation?

Hans Schwyn: It had been clear to us for some time that we wouldn’t have a succes­sor for the Litten­heid clinic intern­ally. When the clinic was sold to the Hinderer/Bosshard fami­lies, who run the Schlössli Oetwil am See private psych­ia­tric clinic and the Berg­heim nursing home, this put us in a good finan­cial posi­tion. We asked oursel­ves how we could put the assets we had accu­mu­la­ted over four gene­ra­ti­ons to good use – and a foun­da­tion with a focus on psych­ia­try and psycho­the­rapy seemed like the obvious choice.

To what extent has this family history influen­ced the foundation’s current direction?

Mari­anne Schwyn: Thanks to our long-stan­ding family connec­tion to psych­ia­try, being close to people with mental health issues has become a part of our lives. We know from expe­ri­ence that there is often little public funding for many services and acti­vi­ties to help this pati­ent group stabi­lise their daily lives after leaving the clinic.

Which speci­fic areas does the foundation’s work focus on?

MS: Our foun­da­tion covers a broad range of topics and geogra­phi­cal areas. One key funding focus is support for young acade­mics. We provide targe­ted back­ing for rese­arch projects at the Faculty of Medi­cine at the Univer­sity of Zurich and work closely with the UZH Foun­da­tion. Speci­fi­cally, we fund clini­cal rese­arch time for junior rese­ar­chers in psych­ia­try and psycho­the­rapy: they’re given protec­ted rese­arch time so that they can engage in long-term acade­mic work in addi­tion to their clini­cal work.

There is often little public funding for many services and acti­vi­ties to help this pati­ent group.

Mari­anne Schwyn

The second funding prio­rity acts as a coun­ter­part to acade­mic funding: we support orga­ni­sa­ti­ons such as the foun­da­ti­ons Pro Mente Sana, the Living Museum Switz­er­land and Medair, which offer direct assis­tance in the form of coun­sel­ling or psycho­so­cial support to those affec­ted in Switz­er­land and abroad. 

What does this support look like?

HS: Pro Mente Sana offers free, acces­si­ble coun­sel­ling for adults with mental health issues and their rela­ti­ves. The foun­da­tion is also heavily invol­ved in aware­ness-raising campaigns and public rela­ti­ons work.

In our colla­bo­ra­tion with the Medair Foun­da­tion, we have been support­ing a project in Leba­non for a few years that provi­des psycho­the­rapy to trau­ma­tised refu­gee child­ren from Syria. As the econo­mic situa­tion in Leba­non worsens, Medair is provi­ding emer­gency aid and coun­sel­ling to broad swathes of the population.

MS: As an offshoot of an inter­na­tio­nal orga­ni­sa­tion, the Living Museum Switz­er­land foun­da­tion offers people with mental disa­bi­li­ties the oppor­tu­nity to engage in art. In turn, this gives them chan­ces to inter­act with each other and a meaningful and crea­tive struc­ture to their day. It’s hard to fund program­mes like this. It’s simply not possi­ble without gene­rous spon­sors – usually large private or state insti­tu­ti­ons. Through our cont­act with the Living Museum Switz­er­land asso­cia­tion, we’re support­ing the launch of Living Muse­ums in Zurich and Schaff­hau­sen. We fund all of these insti­tu­ti­ons for a period of seve­ral years.

How does the foun­da­tion select projects to fund and grants to issue?

HS: We usually take the initia­tive when it comes to colla­bo­ra­ting on a funding project. In terms of Swiss projects in the field of psych­ia­try and psycho­the­rapy, we actively approach the various foun­da­ti­ons – either estab­lished insti­tu­ti­ons or, follo­wing posi­tive expe­ri­en­ces and feed­back, indi­vi­dual insti­tu­ti­ons – oursel­ves. The Living Museum is a good exam­ple of how we work as trus­tees. A pain­ting thera­pist on our Board of Trus­tees brought the project to our atten­tion. We then got in touch with the insti­tu­tion and jointly defi­ned the frame­work for our collaboration.

MS: We receive around 100 appli­ca­ti­ons for funding projects or grants every year; we approve roughly 70 of them. We’re in direct cont­act with the rele­vant mana­gers of multi-year projects abroad that focus on mental health and educa­tion. They approa­ched us of their own accord, and, after carefully revie­w­ing the projects, we agreed to provide long-term, recur­ring finan­cial support. These include water and educa­tion projects in Africa, for exam­ple – and we know that every franc goes directly to the people in ques­tion. We also receive enqui­ries from insti­tu­ti­ons and indi­vi­du­als, who usually ask for smal­ler one-off contri­bu­ti­ons. We often make gut decis­i­ons about these dona­ti­ons, but they’re always in line with our foundation’s purpose. We support social, cultu­ral and artis­tic projects in our neigh­bou­ring regi­ons of St. Gallen and Thurgau.

Such as?

HS: We regu­larly support the Fischin­gen Monastery’s clas­si­cal concerts. A grand­fa­ther asked for a one-off dona­tion for his grand­son, an enthu­si­a­stic and gifted judo athlete whose single mother couldn’t afford to pay the fees for the sports academy. We finan­ced part of his trai­ning – and a few years later, he was part of the Swiss natio­nal squad at the Olympics.

The foun­da­tion is finan­ced priva­tely from its own funds. Are you conside­ring diver­si­fy­ing your finan­cing through part­ner­ships or third-party funding in the future? 

HS: Not at the moment. Some of the proceeds from the sale of our clinic will go to the ‘Schwyn Foun­da­tion’, which means that we will conti­nue to have suffi­ci­ent funds in the future. While we won’t be depen­dent on dona­ti­ons, colla­bo­ra­tion with other stake­hol­ders is important to us. In 2023, we orga­nised a meeting with Swiss foun­da­ti­ons whose work is simi­lar to ours. Around 15 foun­da­ti­ons took part to learn more about how other foun­da­ti­ons work. We’re still in cont­act with some of these foun­da­ti­ons, and we can imagine colla­bo­ra­ting on larger projects with them in the future.

MS: In the case of the Living Museum, for exam­ple, we could envi­sage finan­cing the project in colla­bo­ra­tion with other foun­da­ti­ons in the long term. Howe­ver, there are no concrete plans to do so as yet.

The success of projects such as the Living Museum shows that our society is beco­ming more and more aware of mental health. Has that chan­ged your funding practice?

MS: No, we’d alre­ady selec­ted this area of focus previously. While raising aware­ness of mental health issues has impro­ved the public’s percep­tion, it hasn’t chan­ged the fact that funding is often unavailable.

In other words, more aware­ness doesn’t auto­ma­ti­cally mean more resour­ces. What hurd­les need to be overcome?

HS: Costs are rising across the entire health­care sector due to the ageing of our society, medi­cal advan­ces and other factors. Thera­peu­tic services aiming to provide a meaningful daily struc­ture and treat­ment over a longer period fall between two stools if they’re included in neither the statu­tory bene­fits for health insu­rance or disa­bi­lity insu­rance. Howe­ver, they play a crucial role in the quality of life and self-esteem of those affected.

MS: This was espe­ci­ally clear during the COVID-19 pande­mic with the Living Museum, for instance. Lots of people who used to take advan­tage of the offe­ring really strug­g­led with the rest­ric­tions and the requi­re­ment to ‘stay at home’. They were no longer able to use this gathe­ring space and some­ti­mes kept in touch with people via social media.

What does the future hold for your foundation?

HS: As I mentio­ned, our finan­cing is secu­red for a decent amount of time. We will gradu­ally be expan­ding our board of trus­tees, which is still very much limi­ted to our family.

MS: We also want to expand our networks even more. Our foun­da­tion has now been active for eight years – and over this time, we’ve alre­ady deve­lo­ped and inten­si­fied lots of colla­bo­ra­ti­ons. Once the set-up phase has been comple­ted, the next step is the conso­li­da­tion phase. We want to network even more closely with other foun­da­ti­ons and insti­tu­ti­ons and share even more expertise.