LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS - The European Foundation Centre

5
Foreword
When the seven EFC founding members met on 9 November 1989 to officially
launch the Centre, a European foundation sector as a concept or
community was not yet a reality. What did exist at the time was a fragmented
group of actors, with the majority of foundations working solely within their
national borders. But as you will read in these pages, the pioneering EFC
founders came together in 1989 with a shared vision of a stronger, more
well‐connected and better‐informed network of philanthropic actors from
Europe and beyond. Twenty years further down the road, we see this vision
coming to fruition, with a thriving and valued European foundation sector,
more inclined to work collaboratively to tackle issues of mutual concern.
And at the epicentre of this flourishing sector is the EFC, whose members
and staff continually strive to fulfil the goals so ambitiously laid out by our
founders two decades ago.
Yet despite, perhaps because of, the maturation of the sector, which is outlined
from the perspective of the EFC in this history, there are new challenges
at hand which require robust, collective responsiveness from foundations
in Europe. Global challenges such as those posed by migration,
poverty, climate change and cultural conflict, to name but a few, demand
that we continue to improve the coordination of our work. We are now at
a significant stage where improvements to the legal and fiscal operating
environments for European foundations are long overdue and require a
collective voice at the EU level. Moreover, the promotion of greater transparency
and accountability in our sector is becoming increasingly necessary
if we are to be considered as essential players in the European project.
In my view, it is vital infrastructure organisations, such as the EFC, that will
be pivotal if we are to be able to confront these challenges successfully.
As we move forward together, I am reminded of the old adage that ‘you can’t
know where you are going until you know where you have come from’, which