The Foundations of banking origin are private, non-profit, autonomous organizations and born in the early 1990s from the reform of the credit system. today we have 85 Foundations in Italy, differing in provenance, size and activities. They intervene in different fields from welfare to art and culture, from innovation to sustainability, from primary education to scientific research.
Their mission is to promote development, not only within the territories where they are based and where they are deeply-rooted but also across the entire country. Since the year 2000 they have disbursed over 25 billion euros throughout more than 400 thousand projects and invested substantial resources to pursue the mission established by the Law: social utility and promotion of economic development. The resources used to carry out the projects of the Foundations are drawn from the profits generated by the investments of their assets, which overall amount to around 40 billion euros.
Foundations of banking origin intervene in the territories promoting the so-called “community welfare”, that is to say, they accompany all those subjects – Third sector organizations, institutions, businesses and individual citizens – who take action to take care of the well-being of the members of the community, to achieve the horizontal subsidiarity principle enshrined in the Constitution.
Together with the communities, the Foundations take care of the frailties, promoting the labour integration of the disabled and their autonomy, providing assistance to the elderly who are not self-sufficient (favouring support for families and domiciliation), supporting the protection of children, the recovery the social groups who are most exposed to forms of marginalization and abuse and taking part in the fight of addictions. With this community perspective, Foundations favour the birth of community foundations: institutions borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon world, which are born to respond to community needs with resources coming in part from a promoting foundation and, in part, from donations collected directly from citizens, businesses and institutions.
Moreover Foundations are the main supporter of the world of Volunteering. They annually support the Single National Fund (Fun – Fondo Unico Nazionale), which provides resources to the entire system of service centres for volunteering (CSV – Centri di Servizi per il Volontariato), and contribute to define the general strategic guidelines to which all the centres must comply, taking part in the governance of the national control body (Onc Foundation – Organismo Nazionale di Controllo) and of the territorial bodies connected to it.
Each Banking Foundation operates in its own territory, generally the province or region in which it is based. However, there are also many national and international initiatives, carried out under the coordination of Acri.
Among the major joint projects, there are:
- Fondo per il contrasto della povertà educativa minorile, which is the largest active intervention in Italy to respond to the phenomenon of child poverty
- Fondo Repubblica Digitale, to tackle digital inequality
- Fondazione Con il Sud, to promote the activation of social cohesion paths and good networking practices to encourage the development of the regions of the South
- The vast social housing plan, which Foundations are carrying out throughout Italy together with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.
