The year 2020 was characterised by new challenges and opportunities generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. For a better understanding of how an umbrella foundation can provide a quick and agile solution to donors wishing to respond to new emerging needs, Swiss Philanthropy Foundation invites you to read the following article “Swiss foundations’ response to the challenges of COVID-19 – Three initiatives sheltered by Swiss Philanthropy Foundation“.
Written by Sabrina Grassi, this special contribution illustrates the three emergency funds deployed under the umbrella of our Foundation and was published in the “Report on Foundations in Switzerland 2021”. This report is co-written on a yearly basis by the Center for Philanthropy Studies of the University of Basel, SwissFoundations, , and the Center for Foundation Law of the University of Zurich.
The first one is the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, created on the request of the World Health Organisation (WHO), co-hosted by the United Nations Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation, which in 10 months collected CHF 241 million in donations from more than 650,000 donors in Switzerland and abroad. This is followed by the Verbier Festival Emergency Relief Fund, through which no less than 300 individual grants have been distributed to musicians in precarious situations over the past nine months. Finally, there is the COVID-19 Rapid Aid Fund, created on the initiative of our Board of Trustees according to the principle of matching funds, which has collected a total of more than CHF 700,000 to help 20 long-standing NGO partners.
“Faced with the emergencies resulting from the pandemic, SPF has confirmed the relevance of its model of a shelter foundation, a model that is both flexible and effective and acts as a vehicle between philanthropic actors wishing to get involved and the beneficiaries.”
Sabrina Grassi, General Director of SPF.
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