Stephan Schmidheiny

Philosophy

In the 1980s, Stephan Schmidheiny set the basis for entrepreneurial philanthropy with his foundations Fundes and Avina. This concept is based on the belief that the great challenges facing humanity cannot be overcome with financial donations alone, but only with entrepreneurial solutions.

Stephan Schmidheiny's philanthropic activities abide by his entrepreneurial attitude and a threefold result (“triple bottom line”): social, ecological and financial criteria are defined, recorded and reported. In all three dimensions, his foundations are considered to be among the best.

Stephan Schmidheiny's foundations take business risks. They often and very specifically provide seed money in order to motivate other investors to also participate in the projects in a second phase once the supported projects have been borne out.

With the establishment of the Viva Trust in 2003, Stephan Schmidheiny once again entered unchartered philanthropic territory. He established an irrevocable trust according to British law and donated his companies in Latin America to it. Ever since, the Viva Trust has been investing a significant portion of the profits in the Fundación Avina.

Fundes

Together with the Archbishop of Panama, Marcos McGrath, Stephan Schmidheiny launched the Fundes initiative in 1984, a foundation for the sustainable development of the Latin American private sector. The objective of Fundes is to strengthen the entrepreneurial capacities of small and mid-sized enterprises in Latin America, thereby supporting social and economic progress and contributing to sustainable development in this region. The foundation was one of the first institutions in the region to grant micro-loans. Today, it is active in ten Latin American countries.

www.fundes.org

Avina

As early as 1994, Stephan Schmidheiny established in Switzerland Avina Stiftung, a charitable institution committed to social and ecological sustainability, an issue yet unknown at the time. Its aim is to create opportunities for as many people as possible to improve their living conditions through their own efforts. In 2001, the Avina network in Latin America reached a critical size, which is why Stephan Schmidheiny founded the Fundación Avina. Today Fundación Avina is present in 15 countries of Latin America through a network of physical and virtual departments. Today Fundación Avina operates 14 offices all over Latin America. The Avina Stiftung in turn focuses mainly on projects in Switzerland. Both organizations today are financially and organizationally independent from each other. They work together, however, to promote exchanges between Europe and Latin America.

www.avinastiftung.ch
www.avina.net

Viva Trust

In 2003, Stephan Schmidheiny irrevocably bequeathed his Latin American industrial group, GrupoNueva, worth about USD 1 billion, to the Viva Trust, which he had established. GrupoNueva consists of companies active in the forestry and building materials industries, which are also managed in accordance with financial, social and ecological criteria. The Viva Trust is meant to contribute to development in Latin America in the long term. Accordingly, a significant portion of the profits from industrial activities is invested in the Fundación Avina and other philanthropic activities.

www.viva-trust.com