€ 60 million to emergent needs: Fondazione Cariplo re-shapes 2020 priorities to boost crisis response

The Commissione Centrale di Beneficenza – the Steering Board of Fondazione Cariplo – has unanimously approved the 2019 Financial Results: an extremely positive year with a surplus of 501 million euros, thanks to the performance of assets management and the 5 billion euros managed by Quaestio Capital Management Sgr that generated a 8.76% gross yield, and dividends from investments totalling 198.8 million euros.

Today, because of the pandemic, the Italian and global scenarios have profoundly changed, and the Foundation must pursue its philanthropic mission in a highly uncertain environment. In these uncertain times for all, the Foundation reasserts its commitment towards the territory and its communities, by focusing on immediate actions to respond to the crisis and starting a medium-term path to promote innovation in the territory.

Resources available to philanthropic activities in 2020 amount to 135 million euros, as per the DPPA 2020 - Documento Programmatico di Pianificazione Annuale approved on 5^th November 2019. In relation to such amount, 60 million euros have not been allocated so far hence may serve the purpose of an extraordinary reprioritisation of the activities in light of the Covid-19 emergency.

Starting with the redirection of these grants, Fondazione Cariplo envisages to exploit the flywheel effect to mobilise additional resources, economic but not only, namely within projects already underway, in collaboration with Community Foundation or other potential partners.

The new action framework approved by the Steering Board lies on two distinct lines of work:

• Immediate actions to respond promptly to the emergency, particularly aimed to support Third Sector organisations that operate in the social, cultural and environmental fields, and tackle child poverty (health and nutrition risks, and access to education).
• Medium-to-long term actions, based on a thorough rethinking and analysis on how to restart, building new models and new tools to support social cohesion and people’s growth through Culture, the Environment, Welfare models and Research.

The revised framework – that will be furthered in the coming weeks – sets out 6 priority goals towards which resources and efforts of the four philanthropic areas of the Foundation will be channelled:

• Tackle new poverties triggered by the crisis that will bring an even greater social distancing  
• Support to the non-profit sector organisations severely hit by the crisis
• Identification of opportunities for economic growth and job creation, especially “green” and mindful of environmental sustainability
• Rethinking of welfare models
• Rethinking of the cultural system, in the light of the key role culture can play in the restart phase
• Relaunch of research, an undisputedly central element for the transformation of operating models and organisational set-ups in most sectors of activities.

“In these highly uncertain times, we have clearly in mind Fondazione Cariplo’s statutory role and goals: we invest in the most fragile peope, in culture, in research and in the environment. Four key areas we must start from to generate value and look into the future. The Foundation plays an active role, that goes beyond making financial resources available, by promoting and stimulating initiatives aimed at building and strengthening the cohesion of communities. Communities’ cohesion and people’s development are not only guiding values for us but also two necessary conditions to overcome the current critical phase we are living in.”, Giovanni Fosti, President of Fondazione Cariplo.