Werner Bonhoff Foundation

Werner Bonhoff Foundation (WBS)
Legal form:	Foundation under civil law
Purpose:	non-profit
Chair:	Till Bartelt
Consist:	since 2002
Founder:	Elsbeth Bonhoff
Seat:	Berlin
Website:	www.werner-bonhoff-stiftung.de www.nach-der-tat.de

Werner Bonhoff Foundation is a non-profit foundation under private law based in Berlin .

Background and goals

The Werner Bonhoff Foundation was established in 2002 by Elsbeth Bonhoff from the assets of her deceased son in memory of her two children who died before her. The entrepreneur Werner Bonhoff was killed in a plane crash in 2000. His sister Erika was the victim of a robbery on November 1, 1980 in her brother Werner's Berlin fashion shop. Against this tragic background, the foundation set its priorities: violence prevention and entrepreneurial vocational training.

Board of Trustees and Management

The Werner Bonhoff Foundation is economically and politically independent due to Werner Bonhoff's estate. It is led by the executive board, which is advised and controlled by the board of trustees.

Composition of the Foundation's Board of Trustees since 2002:

Werner Gegenbauer (from 2002 to 2003)
Till Bartelt (from 2002 to 2005)
Christian Grün (from 2002 to 2016)
Walter Purschke (from 2002 to 2016)
Peter Dussmann (from 2005 to 2009)
Klaus Schroeter (from 2006 to 2018)
Günther Jauch (from 2008 to 2010)
Gunnar Folke Schuppert (since 2012)
Ursula Weidenfeld (since 2016)
Kai Drabe (since 2018)

Managing director since 2002:

Klaus Schroeter (from 2002 to 2005)
Till Bartelt (sole director since 2005)

Project: Bureaucracy Therapy

In its hands-on project “Bureaucracy Therapy”, the Werner Bonhoff Foundation motivates entrepreneurs to share their bureaucratic experiences so that others, as well as administration and legislation, can learn from them. In doing so, she activates the self-employed and entrepreneurs to use their descriptions to initiate improvement processes " bottom-up " and thus initiate change. In the medium and long term, this creates a transparent error culture in the country.

The initiative was scientifically founded by the parallel research project "bureaucratic transparency". The foundation's research project ran from 2005 to 2012 at the Humboldt University in Berlin and there since 2007 under the direction of Gunnar Folke Schuppert . According to the findings from the evaluation of the received cases, the focus of the bureaucracy criticism from practice is a lack of problem-solving orientation on the part of the administration as well as the large number of confusing, independent bureaucracies in Germany, which particularly burden small businesses with their requirements and sometimes overwhelm them.

In its online case collection, the Werner Bonhoff Foundation makes bureaucratic descriptions from business practice that it has sent in freely available as teaching and illustrative material.

Furthermore, the foundation brings entrepreneurial people who struggle with bureaucratic hurdles and are looking for fellow campaigners or supporters together in their Bonhoff exchange. It thus promotes the exchange of experiences among those affected.

In the nationwide traveling exhibition “The Kaiser has nothing on! Bureaucracy Therapy from Next Door ”, 30 bureaucratic problems that are often still acute are presented briefly and succinctly in pictures and text. Previous stations of the exhibition: u. a. Berlin, Dresden, Bochum, Neu-Isenburg, Augsburg, Eppingen, Potsdam and Balingen.

Violence Prevention Project: After the Act

The Werner Bonhoff Foundation pursues the goal of improving the state's reactions to bullying and violence so that acts of bullying and violence can be ended as early and effectively as possible with the nationwide hands-on project “After-the-fact”, which was launched in 2010 . Both the observers and those affected, as well as the school are supported here. The school's clear stance on violence and bullying strengthens the young people's trust in the school and in the validity of the law. So that no one affected or observer of violence & bullying has to feel helpless and can take action without endangering himself, the foundation has developed free tools. In the "Vigilant School" program, the foundation supports and accompanies schools across Germany individually in improving their reactions to bullying and violence in order to take quick, effective and thus successful action against attacks.

Awarded prizes

"Werner Bonhoff Prize against the §§ jungle" (for entrepreneurs and self-employed)

The lighthouse of the “Bureaucracy Therapy” project is the award of the “Werner Bonhoff Prize against the §§ jungle”. Bureaucratic portrayals of particular charisma have been solemnly awarded 50,000 euros in prize money since 2006. The foundation awards the prize in order to win entrepreneurial people to describe their practical cases and thus to promote commitment that is critical of bureaucracy.

Günther Jauch is one of the previous winners . In 2008 he was awarded the "Werner Bonhoff Prize against the §§ Jungle" for his persistent and objective criticism of the practice of the City of Potsdam's Monument Protection Office. His persistent commitment led to the establishment of a clearing house at a monument protection authority and thereby to the restructuring and improvement of the authority.

The cases of the other award winners are also of far-reaching importance for the impact of the foundation:

2006: Hans-Wolff Graf from Munich not only saves costs and bureaucracy with his unconventional self-employed model, but also inspires numerous founders with his company model.
2007: Bernd Beigl arranged for a restructuring of the municipal administration in Augsburg by persistently applying for a permit for a cycle rickshaw .
2009: Sebastian Störzbach from Ditzingen successfully defended himself against an independent bureaucracy, the powerful BaFin (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority).
2010: Georg Heitlinger from Eppingen brought down the obligation of farms to pay the "Sales Fund for Agriculture" and its CMA (Central Marketing Society of the German Agricultural Industry).
2011: Kai Boeddinghaus from Kassel ended the practice of the IHK (Chamber of Commerce and Industry) that their functionaries speak for their members at will without asking them beforehand.
2012: Renate Günther-Greene from Düsseldorf has cut a path for many people with disabilities to assert their legal right to a self-determined professional life by using their "personal budget" against the public administration.
2013: Tim Wessels from Hamburg prevented compulsory pension insurance for the self-employed with minimum contributions "at a dizzying height".
2014: Claudia Domnik from Neu-Isenburg achieved a masterpiece from her incapacity to start a business against government windmills.
2015: Sabine Schmuck from Ingolstadt, with an e-petition at the German Bundestag, called for the precarious economic situation of the freelance midwives who are active in obstetrics and who cannot finance the high compulsory insurance contributions for liability insurance with the low standard rates of the health insurances for obstetrics , to end.
2016: Christa Weidner from Aschheim successfully defended herself against the tightened pension insurance practice with regard to the examination of so-called "bogus self-employment" and its consequences for hundreds of thousands of self-employed in the country.
2018: Marcello Danieli has been fighting for years to attract trainees for his logistics company in Neu-Ulm. After he couldn't find any trainees on a regular basis, he wanted to recruit suitable refugees for his company for training. He encountered stubborn bureaucratic hurdles. He demands better support for companies from the immigration authorities and makes the need for improvement visible.
2019: Oliver Blume, Hanover. Bringing new ideas into line with existing laws is always a challenge for authorities. Therefore, they should work closely together and always agree on a common line. In Göttingen, the hotel concept was approved by Oliver Blume, managing partner of BoxHotel GmbH. In Hanover, the same concept was then rejected, despite the application of the same regulations. With his case, Mr. Blume shows the need for improvement in the exchange between the authorities.

"Does your school have bullying under control?" (for school newspapers)

As part of the federal state school newspaper competition, the Werner Bonhoff Foundation has been offering the special prize “Does your school have bullying under control?” Every year since 2014. The award is given to school newspaper articles that deal with whether and how the school specifically reacts to bullying and violence.

Bonhoff Entrepreneur Center (BUZ)

In the Bonhoff Entrepreneur Center (BUZ) in Dresden, the foundation promotes the low-threshold exchange of experience and skills between entrepreneurs.