About the foundation
In terms of its academic scope, the foundation sees itself as
- an academic research centre,
- an educational and teaching institution,
- a policy think tank.
In terms of its functions as a civil society organisation, the foundation sees itself as
- a civil society watch dog organisation,
- a civil society contributor to public and political discourse,
- a civil society service provider.
The audiences of all its activities consists of
- the international academic community, in particular in the humanities and social sciences, with a specific focus on civil society and philanthropy studies,
- European, German national, and state decision makers, and media,
- civil society organisations and civic activists in Europe and beyond,
- the general public.
The foundation’s annual turnover ranges from 15 to 20 million Euros. The foundation’s endowment is small. Funding for all activities is provided by
- 50,000 donors (p.a.) who make earmarked donations to the foundation’s Transnational Giving programme and support the foundation’s other activities through the percentage that remains with the foundation,
- occasional grants from the European Commission and German government and governmental arms’ length bodies (i.a. Deutsche Stiftung Engagement und Ehrenamt) for individual projects conducted in one of the foundation’s programmes,
- grants from non-governmental bodies (recently i.a. Porticus, Open Society Foundations, Gulbenkian Foundation, Kurt-und-Maria-Dohle-Stiftung, Islamic Relief Deutschland e.V., Otto-Brenner-Stiftung, Rotary International (Deutscher Governorrat), Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung, Förderverein Zivilgesellschaftsforschung, Quelle Innovationsstiftung) for individual projects conducted in one of the foundation’s programmes.
The legal seat of the foundation is Munich, Germany, but all activities are organized and carried out in and from Germany’s capital city Berlin. The human resources of the foundation consist of:
- 4 members of the supervisory board,
- 2 members of the board of directors (1 exec., 1 non-exec.),
- 9 paid staff,
- 3 student staff,
- 2 volunteer staff,
- 1 visiting fellow,
- free-lance contributors to individual research and publication projects.
Staff members are assigned to one of the 4 permanent programmes of the foundation. They devote 100% of their time to the activities of the programme they are assigned to, and to the permanent project and development efforts at foundation level. All activities observe the legal and fiscal restrictions imposed upon tax-exempt organisations, are conducted on an ongoing basis and with one exception are organized within one of the programmes of activity.
