Europe's top 40 foundations ranked

Howard Lake | 10 August 2003 | News

• Tagged with:
• Giving/Philanthropy
• Research / statistics

Europe’s top 40 foundations give 3.2 billion euros a year, according to ‘Philanthropy in Europe’ magazine’s latest research.

Philanthropy in Europe magazine has published the first continent-wide ranking of Europe’s biggest-spending foundations, listing the top 40 by grant expenditure. The list is dominated by foundations from Germany, Italy and the UK, but there are a further nine countries represented in the listing: Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

The ranking shows that the Wellcome Trust is by far the biggest spender amongst European foundations, with grants of over ‚€700 million, despite asset falls of approximately ‚€8.7 billion over the last three years. The next largest is the Spanish savings bank foundation Fundación La Caixa.

Europe’s top 40 foundations gave away 3.2 billion euros in 2002, compared to grants from the biggest spending foundations in the United States of ‚€6.8 billion. However, Europe’s foundations are a great deal more international in their giving than their American counterparts, excluding the Italian banking foundations, in general spreading their grants across European and international borders. In contrast, of the 40 top American foundations, only 14 made any grants outside the US.

Europe’s Top 40 Foundations (by expenditure, with all figures in euros) are:

1. Wellcome Trust (UK) ‚€701 million
2. Fundación La Caixa (Spain) ‚€169 million
3. Stichting NOVIB (Netherlands) ‚€154.7million
4. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal) ‚€132 million
5. Volkswagen Stiftung (Germany) ‚€124.4 million
6. Compagnia di San Paolo (Italy) ‚€117.4 million
7. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Germany) ‚€110 million
8. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (Germany) ‚€102 million
9. Aga Khan Foundation (Switzerland) ‚€91 million
10. Fondazione Cariplo (Italy) ‚€90.1 million
11. Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena (Italy) ‚€80.05 million
12. Fundacion ONCE (Spain) ‚€78.2 million
13. Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse (Sweden) ‚€66.15 million
14. Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany) ‚€65 million
15. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino (Italy) ‚€64.5 million
16. HIVOS (Netherlands) ‚€59.5 million
17. Wolfson Foundation (UK) ‚€58.2 million
18. Fondation de France (France) ‚€58 million
19. Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Sweden) ‚€55 million
20. Gatsby Charitable Foundation (UK) ‚€55 million
21. Garfield Weston Foundation (UK) ‚€47.5 million
22. Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany) ‚€47 million
23. Technologiestichting—STW (Netherlands) ‚€46 million
24. Fundacion Telefonica (Spain) ‚€45 million (2002)
25. Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung (Germany) ‚€45 million
26. Vehbi Koc Foundation (Turkey) ‚€44.4 million
27. Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (Germany) ‚€40 million
28. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo (Italy) ‚€40 million
29. Henry Smith’s Charity (UK) ‚€36.4 million
30. Avina Stiftung (Switzerland) ‚€33 million
31. Tudor Trust (UK) ‚€32.3 million
32. ZEIT Stiftung (Germany) ‚€28 million
33. Software AG Foundation (Germany) ‚€26 million pa
34. Fundacao Oriente (Portugal) ‚€26 million
35. King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium) ‚€25 million
36. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Roma (Italy) ‚€25 million
37. Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung (Germany) ‚€24.4 million
38. Bayerische Landesstiftung (Germany) ‚€21.8 million
39. Jacobs Foundation (Switzerland) ‚€21.2 million
40. Suomen Kultuurirahasto (Finland) ‚€20 million

Total: ‚€3.2 billion

The magazine also includes a ranking of Europe’s top 10 wealthiest foundations, which includes several of Europe’s “most inscrutable and secretive foundations”. The top 10 wealthiest foundations held assets of an estimated ‚€57 billion in 2002, up from ‚€52 billion in 2000. However, the figures are muddied due to the complicated share structures of two Swiss foundations
and their corporate holdings

Philanthropy in Europe is a bi-monthly magazine providing news and analysis on giving by Europe’s individuals, foundations and companies.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.