The Visions and Roles of Foundations in Europe

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The Visions and Roles of Foundations in Europe
Project Overview and Results

• Helmut Anheier
• (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Siobhan Daly
• (University of Northumbria, UK)

2005
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Background -- Impetus

• Expansion (more foundations)
• Greater expectations (small state, civil society)
• Little knowledge, comparative
• European level
• timely EU, national level, CEE
• important What role? Positioning

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Project Goals

• - Contribute to a better understanding of the
  policy environment of foundations in Europe
• - Understand the role and visions foundations
  have of, and for, themselves in the new Europe
• - Assess the strengths and weaknesses of
  foundation visions and policies
• - Create a forum for ongoing policy debate
  about the future role of Europes foundations

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Participating Countries Europe (22)

• Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
  Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
  Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein,
  the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain,
  Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom

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Additional Studies

• Comparative perspective from the United States
• European Union
• Comparative Analysis

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What do we mean by Foundation?

• an asset-based entity.
• a private entity.
• a self-governing entity.
• a non-profit-distributing entity.
• serves a public purpose.

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Types of Foundation

• Grant making Foundations
• Operating Foundations
• Mixed Foundations
• Other corporate foundations, community
  foundations.

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Approach

• Empirical Profiling
• Multiple case research design

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What roles and visions?

• Roles
• What roles do European foundations fulfil?
• Key issues legitimacy contribution to
  societies evidence

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Roles

• complementarity
• substitution
• preservation of traditions and cultures
• redistribution
• social and policy change,
• promotion of pluralism
• innovation.

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Results Complementarity Role

• This role is concerned with the extent to which
  foundations serve otherwise under-supplied groups
  under conditions of demand heterogeneity and
  public budget constraints.
• Broad consensus across countries that this role
  is generally fulfilled by foundations.
• Different ideas of what complementing the state
  entails underpin this role. These range from
  bargaining, to partnership, to supporting the
  state firstly, via the provision of resources
  second, by catering for specialist needs, and
  finally, via service provision.

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Results Substitution Role

• This role expects foundations to take on
  functions otherwise or previously supplied by the
  state. In this role, foundations substitute state
  action, and foundations become providers of
  public or quasi-public goods.
• Foundations reluctant to assume this role, but
  find it increasingly difficult to avoid it.
• Concerns about autonomy and resources
• (e.g. Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary).

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Results Preservation of Traditions and Cultures

• Opposing change, preserving past lessons and
  achievements, likely to be swamped by larger,
  social, cultural and economic forces.
• On the one hand, this role is associated with
  foundations focused on arts and culture. On the
  other hand, the role reflects the perception of
  foundations as great bastions of traditions and
  culture (e.g. Sweden).
• This role also evokes negative connotations of
  foundations being backward looking (e.g.,
  Switzerland, U.K.).

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Results Redistribution Role

• The idea that the major role of foundations is to
  engage in, and promote, redistribution of
  primarily economic resources from higher to lower
  income groups.
• In general, not acknowledged as a key role for
  foundations in Europe, except in Greece and
  Spain.
• Some foundation representatives view this role as
  a banal feature of foundation giving that does
  not accurately reflect the original intentions of
  a donor, (e.g. in France, Norway, Sweden).

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Results Social and Policy Change

• Promoting structural change and a more just
  society, fostering recognition of new needs, and
  empowerment of the socially excluded.
• In the majority of the countries included in the
  project, interviewees are aware of the potential
  role for foundations in affecting social and
  policy change.
• Varying levels of impact
• Significant among larger foundations (e.g. in
  Denmark, Germany and Switzerland).
• Limited in Austria, Hungary, Belgium and Ireland.
• Issue How well-placed are foundations to fulfill
  this role?

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Results Pluralism

• Promoting experimentation and diversity in
  general protecting dissenters/civil liberties
  against the state challenging others in social,
  economic, cultural, environmental policy.
• Mixed views among foundations within and across
  countries. Issue Autonomy of foundations versus
  dependence on external funding.
• Particular resonance in Eastern Europe among
  foundations funded by external resources.

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Results Innovation Role

• Promoting innovation in social perceptions,
  values, relationships and ways of doing things
  has long been a role ascribed to foundations.
• Overall, foundations like to see themselves as
  engaged in innovative activities.
• Representatives from outside foundations
  disagreed with this perception, e.g. Austria and
  Hungary.

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Results Innovation Role

• But, what does innovation mean for foundations,
  and how innovative are they?
• This variously implies that foundations are
  willing to take risks and that they are capable
  of doing a better job than the government in the
  areas in which they work. Innovation is also
  linked to practices as well as activities, such
  as greater openness to collaboration and
  networking with other foundations etc.

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What roles and visions?

• Visions
• Recognition of broader context for philanthropy.
• What is the nature of the policy environment in
  which foundations function?

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Visions

• Social Democratic
• State Controlled
• Corporatist
• Liberal
• Peripheral
• Business

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Results Social Democratic Vision

• In the social democratic vision, foundations
  exist in a highly developed welfare state. As
  part of a well co-ordinated relationship with the
  state, operating foundations either complement or
  supplement state activities.
• Governments seeking to increase the role of
  foundations in providing public services.
• Foundations do not want a substitutive role.
• Concerns about autonomy and capacity to fulfill
  roles versus pressures from governments (in
  particular, Norway, Sweden, U.K.)

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Results State Controlled

• In the state controlled vision, foundations are
  ultimately subservient to the state. Restrictive
  laws, complicated administrative procedures, and
  extensive oversight establish a relatively tight
  control regime for foundations.
• ? Rejected in all countries as neither a feasible
  nor desirable environment for the operation of a
  foundation, even though some function under very
  tightly regulated arrangements (e.g., Spain).

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Results Corporatist Vision

• In the corporatist vision, foundations are by and
  large in some form of subsidiarity relation with
  the state. Operating foundations are part of the
  social welfare or educational system, and many
  combine grant-making and operative dimensions.
• Traditional corporatist countries (e.g. Austria,
  Switzerland, Germany) can point to examples that
  fit this vision.
• However, signs of changing relations between
  foundations and the state.

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Results Liberal Vision

• In the liberal vision, foundations form a largely
• parallel system next to government, frequently
• seeing themselves as alternatives to the
• mainstream and safeguards of non-majoritarian
• preferences.
• Various interpretations of this model which tend
  to cluster around the complementarity role, on
  the one hand (e.g., Czech Republic, Belgium), and
  social and policy change, innovation and the
  promotion of pluralism, on the other (e.g.,
  Germany).
• Enabling environment also important here.

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Results Peripheral

• The peripheral vision sees foundations in a minor
  role, and as largely insignificant yet ultimately
  worthwhile institutions as long as they do not
  challenge the status quo.
• Many foundations reluctant to admit to playing a
  minor role in society.
• Foundations tend to rate the importance of the
  roles they seek to fulfil vis-à-vis the state and
  the private sector.
• Acknowledged as relevant in countries with a
  small foundation sector (e.g. Austria, Ireland,
  Hungary).

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Results Business Vision

• In the business vision, foundations become
• instruments of corporate citizenship, and assist
• business interest in reaching out to communities
• and customers by serving the public benefit in
• enlightened but ultimately self-interested ways.
• Development of relations with the corporate
  sector was identified as a key priority for
  foundations,e.g., in Greece, Ireland,
  Netherlands.
• Difficulties of cultivating relations with
  corporate entities noted by some foundations,
  e.g., in Estonia, U.K., Switzerland.

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Initial Summary

• Roles
• Foundations tend to aspire to more than one role.
• Broad Support for Complementarity, Innovation,
  Social and Policy Change and Pluralism.
• Visions
• Less agreement on visions however, liberal
  vision more accepted than others.

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Initial Summary

• Links between complementarity role and social
  democratic and corporatist visions.
• Links between liberal vision and
• Innovation, social and policy change,
• promotion of pluralism, on the one hand,
• and complementarity, on the other.

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Key Themes and Issues

• Roles and the Basis of Legitimacy
• Foundations and the Restructuring of Welfare
  States
• What role for foundations in Europe?

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Roles and the Basis of Legitimacy

• Moral
• Technical and Performance
• Political
• Legal

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Foundations Restructuring of Welfare States

• Trends
• Marketisation
• New partnerships
• An enabling role for the state.
• Key Question where to position foundations?

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Foundations Restructuring of Welfare States

• Marketisation contract culture (Spain,
  Switzerland)
• Partnerships No evidence of foundations seeking
  formal partnerships with governments.
• Enabling Role for State How do foundations add
  value, but avoid substitution?

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What role for foundations in Europe?

• Low salience and muddling through
• Foundations as domestic actors.
• Key questions
• What does the Europe/EU have to offer
  foundations?
• Should European foundations cultivate a more
  European role?
• What form should such a role take?

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What role for foundations in Europe?

• Dual Dimension to a more European role
• European Foundations in Europe
• European Foundations in the World

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Conclusion

• New policies, new roles?, but what roles?
• New policy approaches, such as new public
  management and the withdrawal of welfare states
  have forced foundations to reconsider their
  relationship vis-à-vis the state.
• Foundations face a salient challenge in
  (re)defining their role(s), whilst maintaining
  their objectives and autonomy in changing policy
  contexts.