SwissFoundations survey: 25% of Swiss grantmaking foundations persue UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
In 2021, SwissFoundations, the association of Swiss grantmaking foundations, conducted a survey among its members on the seventeen UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Do Swiss grantmaking foundations pursue any ot these 17 defined goals? Is there a topic that Swiss grantmaking foundations are particularly committed to?
37 of our members participated in the survey, and these are the results:
24% of the foundation strategies explicitly refer to the SDGs, 24% of the foundations in our survey said that they do „not yet“ persue SDG’s in their strategy, and around 52% of the foundations surveyed do not persue SDG goals in their overall strategies. Overall, only 3% of the foundations surveyed report on the results obtained by the foundation’s SDG activities.
Goals that are most supported by the participants are:
- 4 QUALITY EDUCATION
- 3 GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
- 15 LIFE ON LAND
If we look at the participating grantmaking foundations in terms of their annual funding volume, we see the following distribution:
12 of the foundations award 1 to 5 million Swiss francs annually, 9 of them award more than 10 MILLION Swiss francs annually, 7 award 0.5 to 1 million Swiss francs annually, and 6 foundations award 5 to 10 million Swiss francs annually. Only one foundation that participated distributes less than 250’000 Swiss francs a year, and two of them spend between 250’000 and 500’00 Swiss francs annually.
What role should and do Swiss foundations want to play in relation to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be achieved globally and by all UN member states by 2030. This means that all states are equally called upon to solve the world’s pressing challenges together. Switzerland is also called upon to implement the goals nationally.
In addition to government efforts to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, foundations in Switzerland could also make an important contribution in helping to achieve those goals by 2030.
SwissFoundations will discuss the results with the participants and will then decide if there could be next steps in connecting the efforts of Swiss Foundations and whether this survey will take place regularly.
The 17 SDGs with their 169 sub-goals are the core of the 2030 Agenda. They take into account the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable developmenz in a balanced way and bring together poverty reduction and sustainable development in one agenda for the first time.
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