Public authorities can be (co) founders, act as (co) funders or administrators of foundations. Governmentally linked foundations can be found in most EU countries ranging from under 4% of the foundation sector in Italy and Germany, 6% in France up to 16-19% in Sweden and Belgium respectively in 2001 (see EFC Research Task Force Survey on the Dimensions of the Foundation Sector in the EU, 2003/2004).
Public authorities set up foundations, which are governed by public law or private law. These foundations of public origin are often run independently once the foundation is set up.
However, in some cases, the public authority keeps influence either through funding schemes or as part of the foundation’s governance structure. Local, regional, national or supranational governmental bodies provide the initial capital or make grants to the foundation on a periodic, usually annual, basis. Once created, these foundations may obtain additional funds from non-governmental sources, however others will rely primarily on public funds. National examples can be found with the Freidrich Naumann Foundation, a German political foundation.
Another example of a public-origin fund is the setting up of the Big Lottery Fund by the British Government in 2003/04 as the new Lottery distributor, bringing together the Community Fund and the New Opportunities Fund.
Public authorities can act as (co) funders or (co) founders of private foundations in a range of different fields, environment, culture, education, research and science.
- The German Bundesstiftung Umwelt was established in 1990 by a legal act from the German Parliament, through which the amount of € 1.3 billion from the privatisation the former state owned steel group Salzgitter AG was used to set up an environmental foundation.
- The Swedish public Wage-Earner funds/löntagarfonderna were transformed in the 1990s’ into private foundations to support research. Recently the French government has been looking at creating research foundations in France in cooperation with private companies, a dozen foundations. These initiatives stem from a 2003 law aimed at reinforcing the links between public and private research, and the government’s strategy to increase research investments up to 3% of GDP by 2010.
At the local level, throughout the European Union, a series of community foundations have been set up with the support of public authorities either as co-founders or co-funders. The Community Foundation for Ireland was setup with an initial government grant of 300.000 Irish Pounds. In 1994 the Healthy City Foundation of Banská Bystrica in Slovakia received an initial donation of 30.000 USD from the City Council of Banská Bystrica.
In certain cases, foundations were created by inter-governmental agreements, such as the Anglo-German Foundation and the Fondation Entente Franco-Allemande.
Supranational examples include the setting up of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures. The “Euromed Foundation was set up in 2004 with a start–up grant from the European Commission within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership/Barcelona Process. In its initial stage of development it will function as a network of national networks among which a series of foundations based in the EU and the partnership countries, e.g. the European Cultural Foundation, the King Baudouin Foundation, the Hellenic foundation for Culture, The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts.
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