Few surveys have explicitly examined the motivations of foundations' founders. They usually illustrate a series of different motivations according to the types of founders.
An interest for a particular project, a strong attachment to a cause, the belief of the founder or the convictions of the person who inspired the project can constitute for many physical persons the key reasons to set up a foundation.
For private institutions the driving force may often consist of having a powerful management tool, which ensures the sustainability of the action of the organisation. In some case the association, particularly those associating people to serve a public purpose objective, can be the first step of development of the organisation, which may decide to dissolve with the starting of the foundation.[1]
Corporations will set up foundations for a range of reasons, namely streamlining corporate giving in order to make it more coherent, making company giving an internal tool of communication, and reducing the growing number of funding requests to the company. It looks like tax advantage is quoted only exceptionally by founding companies as a key motivation.
Creators of foundation-owning corporations have a dual motivation “consisting of preserving, strengthening and assuring the managerial continuity of their corporations while at the same time serving the public interest by creating foundations to which to transfer their ownerships”[2].
As regards public authorities they would often see their involvement in creating or cooperating in the setting up of a foundation as a flexible means and tool to support or increase resources for specific public policies (e.g. research). It is also seen as an effective structure to leverage public and private support for economic and social development of specific geographical areas (towns, neighbourhood, regions etc.)
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[1] see Survey of French foundations: first results – Fondation de France 2004
http://www.fondationdefrance.net/jsp/site/Portal.jsp?article_id=113&portlet_id=1468
[2] Joel Fleishman, Foundation ownership and control of corporation in Germany and the US, p 372. in Foundations in Europe, ed Bertelsmann Foundation /Directory of Social Change/CAF 2001