WS45 – Foundations

In partnership with :

European Foundation Center : www.efc.be

Workshop presentation

Foundations are doubly hybrid beings. Firstly because they are private institutions whose purpose is the public interest. Then because they are eminently « capitalist » institutions because their resources are drawn from the income of capital, but they are non-profit-making. As much in China as in Europe, foundations are the heirs of the conscience of the privileged classes, aristocrats and businessmen who succeeded, and of the duties that their power and their income conferred to them vis-à-vis the rest of the community. Returning to the people all or part of the resources that, directly or indirectly, come from the people and transforming privileges and acquired financial means into a tool at the service of community: these are the guiding themes of foundations. Often, they have been satisfied and still satisfy themselves with « doing good » at the local or national level by distributing benefits in a relatively immediate way, or rounding out or replacing the action of the public authorities. Schools, hospitals, funding of higher education and research, providing various public facilities, or relief given to the poor have been the main traditional forms of the action of foundations. But as the interdependencies within societies have gradually gone beyond national borders and as the traditional means of public action find themselves overwhelmed by the complexity of problems, foundations – through their very adaptability, their ability to react at different levels from local to global, and their flexibility for grabbing hold of new problems – have found themselves invested with new responsibilities to deal with problems of a new scale and nature. Can they and must they break out of their traditional role of auxiliary to ordinary public action? After 20 years of rapid economic development of China, will the emergence of a new class of rich businessman give rise, as in United States and in Europe, to many foundations, and what will their orientations be? Can the dialogue between European and Chinese foundations play a central role in the cooperation between the two great peoples and in the taking on of global challenges?

These will be among the questions covered by this workshop.