European foundations as international players

EVENT  European Foundation Centre conference
Date  20-22 September
Venue  Krakow, Poland
Theme  Foundations for Europe: Dialogue with Corporations and Public Authorities –New Technologies, New Philanthropists

Why are European foundations punching below their weight in international terms? Why does the newly announced Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe have no European money? What role should foundations be playing in emergency situations?

These are some of the questions that arose at this year's EFC conference in Krakow in September.

Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe

The EFC conference was the venue for the launch of the new Trust. The idea was born over three years ago. With outside support to the region gradually reducing, the aim is to provide funding for CSOs in countries where civil society has reached a certain level of maturity in order to bridge the gap before adequate levels of indigenous funding become available and the sector becomes sustainable.

Funding will be delivered through block grants to indigenous intermediary organizations in the seven countries covered (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), which will in turn re-grant these funds to local NGOs. The aim is to make these national grantmaking organizations sustainable rather than the Trust itself, which will spend itself out in ten years.

The initial goal is to have US$75 million to spend over ten years. At present $60.5 million has been pledged. Donors include Mott, Ford, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Institute and the German Marshall Fund of the United States – all American. Newly appointed Executive Director Jacek Wojnarowski, due to take up the post in January, hopes to interest other donors and leverage further funds. There is also a $2 million challenge grant on offer to any European funder willing to come forward – who will take up the challenge?

A Ford Foundation for Europe?

CAF Chief Executive Michael Brophy sees the new Trust very much as a challenge for Europeans. It was he who posed the question: Why aren't European foundations punching their weight in international terms? Why are there no European equivalents of foundations with a general worldwide remit like Ford, Mott and Rockefeller?

This is partly because of Europeans' greater reliance on the state. The European Union is the world's largest international agency but, said Brophy, it is also making a huge mess of its public foundation role. There is much frustration within the EU about its unspent funds and slow response to situations. One answer, he suggested, would be to create a foundation consortium to take over several billion euros of EU money, thus creating the equivalent of a Ford Foundation for Europe. The EFC could push for this to happen.

In fact the idea was mooted as long ago as 1982, at a meeting in Amsterdam. Although member states agreed to put up the money, and the 'Orpheus plan' was even drawn up, in the end the foundation was never created. Perhaps the time is now ripe?

A disaster protocol for foundations

Another interesting initiative, outlined by Rien van Gendt, Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, at the same session, is a disaster protocol for foundations. US and European foundations are coming under increasing pressure to respond to emergencies – both natural diasters such as hurricanes in Central America and conflict situations as in Rwanda and the Balkans. But how should they respond? This is what lies behind a  joint initiative by the EFC and the US Council on Foundations to draw up a disaster protocol for foundations.

In Chinese script the character for 'crisis' also means 'opportunity' – an insight that should surely inform the new protocol, van Gendt suggested. One unforeseen outcome of the Kobe earthquake in Japan was to give an enormous boost to the NGO sector.

There is already a fully-fledged disaster community, with a great body of experience and expertise, so the CoF/EFC should not seek to reinvent the wheel. The task is rather to define foundations' special role. Some might argue that foundations should ideally come in when other funders' interest is beginning to wane. Certainly foundation funding should be 'developmental' even if delivered early on in a crisis. A crucial point here is that foundations must tap into the expertise that already exists locally, which means working with local NGOs wherever possible. They will have an understanding of the situation on the ground, and supporting them gives foundations the opportunity to help build local civil society capacity. This is conspicuously not what happened in Bosnia, Turkey or Kosovo.

A joint working group has now been set up, with six CoF members and six EFC members. It will hold its first meeting in December and a draft document will be presented to the CoF and EFC conferences in May 2001. A revised document will then be presented to a special workshop in Jamaica in June.

The composition of the working group is itself interesting. The six CoF-nominated members will include three US companies – a measure of the level of corporate interest. Citigroup, for example, has developed a policy of giving money early in a crisis and then returning to try to do something more sustainable later. The EFC nominees will include representatives from Japan, Turkey, the Balkans and Mozambique – in keeping with the way the EFC has been recreating itself as an international organization over the last few years.