Community Foundation

The community foundation is a form of social self-organization by citizens for citizens. Community foundations are foundations that support and operate for the local common good .

features

A community foundation is an independent, autonomously acting, non-profit foundation by citizens for citizens with the broadest possible foundation purpose. It is sustainably and permanently committed to the community in a geographically defined area and is usually promotional and operational for all citizens of its catchment area. She supports civic engagement with her work.

Just like community foundations, community foundations aim to continuously build up foundation assets. They offer an adequate form of organization, especially for smaller endowments and as the sponsor of fiduciary foundations. Community foundations are related to a municipality or region, but offer the possibility of realizing numerous foundation purposes. As a rule, it goes without saying that you are completely independent of state, municipal or corporate structures. Community foundations are established and supported by a large number and variety of donors.

Community foundations in Germany

Since the first German community foundations were established in Gütersloh in 1996 and Hanover in 1997, numerous other foundations of this type have emerged throughout Germany. As early as 2000, community foundation representatives at the community foundations working group in Dresden gave themselves a definition, the so-called “10 characteristics of a community foundation”. These characteristics are based primarily on the idea of ​​independence from individual founders or persons, the idea of ​​co-determination, service and transparency. According to the definition, the call for an award from the “real community foundations” was loud. For example, the community foundations working group developed the seal of approval of the Federal Association of German Foundations , which is awarded to the community foundations every year on the day of community foundations for a period of two years. As of October 2015, there are 293 community foundations in Germany that bear the seal of approval of the Federal Association of German Foundations . Since there is no legal definition of the term community foundations, the "10 characteristics" define whether a foundation is a community foundation. The Active Citizenship Foundation registered 400 community foundations in its directory of community foundations in Germany as of June 30, 2016, which correspond to the “10 characteristics of a community foundation”. Since not all community foundations that meet the “10 characteristics of a community foundation” apply for the seal of approval, there is a difference to the number of 293 seal of approval community foundations in Germany.

In its “Report Community Foundations”, an analysis of the community foundations in Germany in 2015, the Active Citizenship Foundation came to the conclusion that over 39 million people in Germany - that is 48% of the population - today potentially have access to a community foundation - as donors, Donors, volunteers or project applicants. Baden-Württemberg has the greatest density of community foundations with 8.6 community foundations per million inhabitants. Lower Saxony (7.5) and North Rhine-Westphalia (6.2) follow . Thuringia ranks first among the eastern German states with 3.2 community foundations per million inhabitants. The assets of the German community foundations grew to a total of 305 million euros in 2014 (as of December 31, 2014). This corresponds to a growth of 10.6 percent compared to the previous year. In 2014, the community foundations raised a total of 12 million euros in donations and distributed over 14 million euros for charitable purposes. Community foundations invest almost half of these funds in education (47%), followed by arts and culture (17%) and social issues (15%). A total of 30,000 founders and 15,000 volunteers are involved in community foundations: 10,000 volunteer in projects or offices and a further 5,000 are on the board of directors, the board of trustees or the foundation board. Other foundations in Germany call themselves community foundations, but do not meet the “10 characteristics” of foundations by citizens for citizens. With these foundations it is not the citizens themselves who decide, but rather local politics and local government, e.g. B. on the composition of committees and the allocation of funds.

10 characteristics of a community foundation

1. A community foundation is non-profit and wants to strengthen the community. It sees itself as an element of a self-determined civil society.
2. A community foundation is usually set up by several donors. Individuals or individual institutions can also initiate their establishment.
3. A community foundation is economically and politically independent. It is not bound by any denomination or party politics. A dominance of individual founders, parties and companies is rejected. Political bodies and heads of administration are not allowed to exert any decisive influence on decisions.
4. A community foundation's area of ​​activity is geographically oriented: a city, a district, a region.
5. A community foundation continuously builds up foundation capital. It gives all citizens who feel connected to a certain city or region and who affirm the foundation's goals the possibility of an additional foundation. It also collects project donations and can set up sub-foundations and funds that pursue some of the purposes listed in the statutes or support regional sub-areas.
6. A community foundation works in a broad spectrum of urban or regional life, the promotion of which is its priority. The purpose of the foundation is therefore broad. It usually includes the cultural sector, youth and social affairs, education, nature and the environment, and monument protection. It is promotional and / or operational and should be innovative.
7. A community foundation supports projects that are supported by civic engagement or that help people to help themselves. In doing so, she tries to find new forms of social commitment.
8. A community foundation makes its projects public and carries out extensive public relations work in order to give all citizens of their region the opportunity to participate in the projects.
9. A community foundation can coordinate a local network within various non-profit organizations in a city or region.
10. The internal work of a community foundation is characterized by participation and transparency. A community foundation has several bodies (board of directors and control body) in which citizens have executive and controlling functions for citizens.

Adopted by the community foundations working group at the 56th annual meeting of the Federal Association of German Foundations, May 2000.

activities

In an international comparison, a special feature of German community foundations is that most of them not only provide funding, but also carry out their own projects. With their work, community foundations can intervene and act as promoters of social change. The spectrum is broad: it ranges from art and culture to youth work and projects for or with senior citizens. Whether violence prevention or nature conservation projects, what these projects have in common is that they are often geared towards integration and participation. With regard to the state and civil society , the community foundations have a bridging function: Due to their special position, they can act as mediators and pass on interests by amplifying the voice. Community foundations are partners of the state, the donors and the region to which they are committed. However, they do not want and cannot represent a substitute for the state.

Particularly successful community foundations have been awarded the Active Citizenship Award for several years . The 2019 award winners are the community foundations Lörrach, Aachen, Nuremberg, Ravensburg district and the Urschelstiftung Bürger für Nagold. Prize winners from previous years included the community foundations in Stuttgart, Salzland - Schönebeck region, Halle and Bielefeld.

Sociopolitical background

Without prejudice to the will for community foundations to be socially committed on the part of those who are close to a foundation and who support it, the motivation for setting up a community foundation usually arises either from the observation that state structures are overwhelmed by the provision of services and offers that serve the common good , or from the Conviction that such services and offers should not be a matter for the state from the outset and should better be taken over by the citizens themselves. Accordingly, community foundations are particularly widespread in societies that traditionally see themselves outside the state (especially the USA, where community foundations have existed since the beginning of the 20th century). At the same time, they represent a social reaction to an economic shift of wealth away from the tax state towards companies and private capital; This aspect, too, is particularly characteristic of the USA, but increasingly also of the social welfare state systems of the western industrialized countries, such as Germany, which are in ever greater financial distress .

literature

• Active Citizenship Foundation (Ed.): Discourse Community Foundations. What moves community foundations and what they move . Berlin 2013
• Philipp Hoelscher, Bernardino Casadei (ed.): Le fondazioni comunitare in Italia e Germania / community foundations in Italy and Germany . Fondazione Cariplo. Congress: Fondazioni comunitarie in Europa - Community foundations in Europe; (Loveno di Menaggio, Villa Vigoni), January 16 and 17, 2006. Series of publications by the Carl Konrad and Ria Groeben Foundation, Maecenata Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-935975-50-3 .
• Amadeu Antonio Foundation (ed.): Community foundations for democratic culture. Examples of civil society engagement . Berlin 2005
• Elke Becker, André Christian Wolf: Donations find the city. A working aid for setting up community foundations . In: Foundation for collaboration (ed.): Contributions to the development of democracy from below , Issue 15, Bonn 1999.
• Bertelsmann Stiftung (Ed.): Handbook of Community Foundations: Aims of establishing, building up, projects . 2nd Edition. Gütersloh 2004.
• Martin Böckel: Independent community foundations - nature, development and work in the communal environment . Studies on Administrative Law, Vol. 17, Verlag Dr. Kovač , Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-8300-2313-8 .
• Bernadette Hellmann, Stefan Nahrlich: Community foundations in Germany. Development, functions, perspectives. In: Foundation & Sponsoring - Red Pages, Issue 4/2014, ISSN  1438-0617 .
• Aaltje Kaper: Community foundations: The foundation under civil law and the dependent foundation as organizational forms for community foundations . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2006, ISBN 3-8329-1585-0 .
• Eva Maria Hinterhuber: In the middle of society. New civil society actors: the community foundations . In: DEMO (2003) / 9, p. 12.
• Philipp Hoelscher, Eva Maria Hinterhuber: From citizens for citizens? Community foundations in Germany's civil society . Maecenata, Berlin 2005.
• Stefan Nahrlich, Rupert Graf Strachwitz, Eva Hinterhuber, Karin Müller (eds.): Community foundations in Germany - balance sheet and perspectives . Opladen 2005, ISBN 3-531-14601-7
• Stefan Nahrlich: Accountability and Governance. How foundation work is legitimized. In: Thematic package community foundations of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2007. Text online
• Nikolaus Turner (Ed.): Initiating good things together - The beginnings of the community foundation movement in Germany , 1st edition 2009, Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, ISBN 978-3-8305-1657-6

Practice guide

• Active Citizenship Foundation (Ed.): Report Community Foundations. Facts and trends 2016 . Berlin 2016
• Active Citizenship Foundation (Hrsg.): Community Foundation: Donate! With money, time and ideas. Tips for citizens, companies, banks, associations, churches and municipalities . Berlin 2011
• Active Citizenship Foundation (Ed.): Managing community foundations successfully. Instructions for the work of boards of directors, foundation boards and curators . Berlin 2011
• Active Citizenship Foundation (ed.): Ways to a community foundation. With model articles of association and model rules of procedure . 4th completely revised and expanded edition, Berlin 2009
• Active Citizenship Foundation (Ed.): Asset management and accounting. With model statutes for trust foundations and funds . Berlin 2008
• Active Citizenship Foundation (Ed.): BürgerStiftungsCheck. Key figure-oriented management of community foundations based on the balanced scorecard . Berlin 2008
• Amadeu Antonio Foundation (Ed.): Projects for Democratic Culture. The work of community foundations on site . Berlin 2007
• Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (Ed.): Community foundations introduce themselves: The bearers of the seal of approval for community foundations - 103 short portraits -, Berlin 2009/2010
• Burkhard Küstermann: Community foundations as trustees: The administration of trust foundations as a service offer for regionally oriented donors , Berlin 2006
• Community foundation initiative: 15 years 10 characteristics of a community foundation. Analyzes, data, trends 2015/16 , Berlin 2015
• Community foundations initiative: Creating good things together , Berlin 2005

Web links

Commons : Community foundations  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• SWR2 Aula - Lecture on community foundations by Christian Pfeiffer
• Bertelsmann Foundation website
• Information portal of the Active Citizenship Foundation on community foundations
• Directory of community foundations in Germany from the Active Citizenship Foundation with community foundation finder
• Website of the “Community Foundations for Democratic Culture” initiative of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation
• Website of the community foundations initiative in the Federal Association of German Foundations
• - Community foundations as a motor of civil society: How citizens can make each other responsible to be more committed to their community by Timo Reinfrank
• Speech by Federal President Horst Köhler on ten years of community foundations in Germany
• Ideas competition for community foundations

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The 10 characteristics of a community foundation
2. ↑ Community foundations in figures ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . PDF, 483 kB. Online at www.buergerstiftungen.org from October 2015. 
3. ↑ Report community foundations. Facts and trends 2015 ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Active Citizenship Award 2019 awarded - the award went to schools, community foundations, cooperative banks and journalists. In: Active Citizenship Foundation. May 24, 2019, accessed on May 22, 2020 (German). 
5. ↑ die-deutschen-buergerstiftungen.de
6. ↑ www.initiative-zivilengagement.de (download) ( Memento of the original from January 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.