Association of Berlin merchants and industrialists
The Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists ( VBKI ) is a German business organization with more than 2,300 members from all business sectors in the German capital. It sees itself as a network and forum for Berlin's economy. The association is also the initiator and organizer of numerous charitable projects. The flagship of the VBKI public welfare promotion is the reading sponsor network with around 2,400 volunteer reading and learning sponsors.
history
On October 6, 1879, 329 Berlin merchants founded the Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists. The VBKI was created in the first Berlin founding period , a time of boom for trade, commerce and the construction industry, in which initiators such as Walther Rathenau , Werner von Siemens , Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering or the industrial family Borsig moved a small Brandenburg town into a global metropolis with their entrepreneurial drive transformed. The First World War threw the Berlin economy and the Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists far back. On Revolution, reparations and inflation was a short sham prosperity, by the global economic crisis has ended. With the takeover of power by the National Socialists in 1933, the VBKI was brought into line and forced to argue. In a short time the VBKI lost two thirds of its members. At the end of the war Berlin was destroyed.
In 1948, entrepreneurs led by Jakob Dichter obtained the re-registration of the association with the Allied authorities. They began to work for the entrepreneurial reconstruction - mainly in the west of Berlin due to the division. As the standard bearer of the free market economy in a besieged part of town, the association and its members stood for the perseverance of the entrepreneurs who fought for a new beginning. After the fall of 1989/1990 , the association expanded its sphere of activity to all of Berlin and Brandenburg.
Seat
Since 1954 the association had its seat in the association house of the Berlin merchants and industrialists . Today it is based in the Ludwig-Erhard-Haus .
activity
The VBKI initiates and supports non-profit projects. The flagship of the promotion of the common good are the Berlin Reading Sponsors, founded in 2005: Currently, 2,400 volunteer reading and learning sponsors at Berlin day-care centers as well as elementary, special and secondary schools are involved in this project with the aim of strengthening reading skills in children and young people. The Sport Makes School project is also aimed at children and young people: on 12 days of sports activities per year, schoolchildren have the opportunity to try out different types of sport and discover the joy of movement. The VBKI also supports top athletes in their non-sporting careers, for example by arranging internships or training and further education. As part of its cultural sponsorship, the VBKI and the Regional Association of Berlin Galleries founded the VBKI Prize for Berlin Galleries, which is endowed with 10,000 euros and which was awarded for the third time in 2019.
People from business, politics and society are involved in the VBKI committees on a voluntary basis. These think tanks deal with questions from the respective subject area (e.g. real estate, economic policy, finance, women in business, culture, business and ethics, science) and develop answers, for example in the form of position papers, from the decision-makers in politics and economy are made available.
The VBKI sees itself as a debate forum for Berlin, at more than 100 public VBKI events per year, experts and political actors discuss current issues. On September 19, 2019, for example, Ralph Brinkhaus, chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, was a guest. On October 30, 2019, Robert Habeck, Federal Chairman of the Greens, visited the VBKI.
The VBKI also organizes the Business Ball and the Business Summer Festival in Berlin once a year.
The VBKI deals with central questions about values in the economy. The working group on economics and ethics has formulated the “guiding principles of respectable economic activity”.
Subject areas
The content-related work of the VBKI is divided into the following subject areas:
- politics
- Berlin location
- founder
- Education & Science
- Culture
- Common good
- Sports
- Business ethics
- Women in business
Charitable commitment
An example of the civic engagement of the VBKI is the "Citizens Network Education" founded in 2005 by the former Berlin School Senator Sybille Volkholz , which arranges voluntary reading and learning mentors at schools and day-care centers. 2,400 sponsors look after 10,000 children and young people in 180 schools and 90 daycare centers every week. The focus of the funding is on institutions with a proportion of children with a migration background of over 40 percent or a corresponding proportion of parents who are exempt from paying additional learning materials. Socially disadvantaged children and young people receive additional support.
With the VBKI athlete sponsorship, the VBKI accompanies Berlin high-performance athletes on their way to the Olympics. The athletes are supported financially as well as being prepared for the time after their sports career through training and further education programs.
organization
Legally, the VBKI is divided into three companies, the VBKI eV acts as partner of the event management GmbH and the VBKI gGmbH. The presidium elected at the general assembly formulates the guidelines and determines the direction in which the association is developing. President Markus Voigt (since 09/2011) and managing director Udo Marin (since 1999) represent the association externally.
The general assembly meets at least once a year.
literature
- Peter Lemburg, Werner Hildebrandt, Jörg Wewel-Blake: New beginnings in change. The way to the Ludwig Erhard House. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89488-127-5 .
- Christof Biggeleben: The "Bulwark of the Bourgeoisie" - The Berlin merchants 1870–1920. Series of publications for the journal for corporate history, Volume 17, Verlag CH Beck, ISBN 978-3-406-54993-9
- Sybille Volkholz: Reading mentors in Berlin or how to make education a social task: The Citizens Network Education, sponsored by the Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists (VBKI) Waxmann Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-8309-2500-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arnt Cobbers: Demolished! Disappeared Buildings in Berlin, Jaron-Verlag, 1st updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-89773-865-2 , pp. 84–85
- ↑ Swimming Olympic champion Britta Steffen gives the go-ahead for "Sport macht Schule". Accessed January 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Schwarz Contemporary honored with VBKI Prize for Berlin Galleries. Accessed January 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Before the party congress: How radical can it get? - The Greens are looking for balance. Accessed January 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Maria Bidian: Berlin dances on the VBKI Ball. February 24, 2019, accessed January 30, 2020 (German).