Number of foundations

To date there are no less than 95.000 public-benefit foundations across 24 EU Member States (information not yet available for Lithuania, Malta and Romania), which represents an average of 20 foundations per 100.000 inhabitants. Of the significantly higher number of organisations labelled as foundations across these countries, 273.000, more than one third is public-benefit foundations. 

Foundations' growth

Foundations in the EU have seen dramatic growth over the past 15 years. In nine countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden), 43% of foundations were set up during the last period surveyed. Noticeable examples of this growth include:

- Slovakia: increase from 103 to 338 foundations over ten years. This mainly reflects legislative changes in 2002 which required pre-registration of all foundations

- Italy: the number of foundations increased by 133%. Since the 1990 Amato Law was introduced, 90 foundations of banking origin were set up

- Germany: an increase of 103% of independent foundations

From 2001 to 2007, Dutch public-benefit foundations increased by c.40%. In Ireland, where there were 30 public foundations, by 2005 there were 107, an increase of 257% in six years.
Figure 6 below shows absolute numbers of newly-created foundations for periods varying from 7 to 11 years. Over 18,000 foundations were created in nine EU countries. During the last year of the decade surveyed, Germany saw the creation of the highest number of foundations, at 852, an average of over two foundations per day. In Italy the foundations created in the last decade represent over half of all foundations existing in the country. In Estonia virtually all foundations (638) were created after independence in 1996, when the present laws on foundations came into force.