Every foundation and organization starts from a different place.
For some foundations, the immediate opportunity may be to examine how their endowment is invested and consider whether financial decisions are aligned with their purpose. Others may already be exploring impact investment, catalytic capital or new ways to connect investment and philanthropy.
But the journey can extend further.
Every organization stewards resources of different kinds – capital, knowledge, capabilities, relationships, ideas or influence. Greater impact can become possible when organizations think more intentionally about these resources and how they might work together.
There is no single model and no requirement to change everything at once. The important questions are often simpler:
Our own experience has taught us that each step can reveal the next. The journey may begin with investment, but it can lead towards a much broader understanding of stewardship – and of the potential each organization has to contribute to positive change.
Our journey began with a clear conviction: capital can generate positive social and environmental impact alongside financial returns. Since 2015, the Foundation has put this into practice by investing 100% of its endowment for impact, demonstrating that impact and market returns can be achieved together. It is core to our mission to co-invest with fellow asset owners and we also offer advice and evidence to asset owners who consider engaging in return-driven impact solutions.
Building on this experience, we have applied the same conviction more broadly. We bring investment and philanthropy together with partnerships, knowledge, networks and influence to advance a common purpose.
This experience has shaped how we put stewardship into practice – using all the resources available to the Foundation to create impact.
Capital matters, but money alone may not create lasting change. Ideas need people, organizations and systems capable of turning them into action. Promising approaches need evidence, expertise, relationships and supportive environments if they are to grow. Lasting change may also depend on policy, public awareness and the willingness of others to adopt and adapt what works.
This has encouraged us to look increasingly at how different resources can work together – and at how we can support strong, entrepreneurial organizations to realize more of their systemic potential. The support of entrepreneurs through the different stages of corporate scaling is a core part of our engagement, as we aim to strengthen local impact and job creation, and ultimately to recycle capital for sustained impact wherever possible.
Our journey demonstrates what is possible when a foundation commits its full endowment to impact and combines capital with broader forms of support. By putting this approach into practice and sharing our experience, we aim to encourage others to use more of the resources they steward for positive change.
In Switzerland, the Foundation focuses all of its Learning to Earning funding on Smartfeld. The education initiative works with schools and education professionals to develop practical, responsible and future-oriented approaches to integrating AI and digital technologies into teaching and learning.
Through professional development for teachers, collaboratively developed solutions and new approaches to teaching, Smartfeld helps prepare young people for a rapidly evolving educational and employment environment.
Child’s Dream works with children and young people across the Mekong region to expand access to education and skills development and strengthen pathways into employment and entrepreneurship. The organization develops its own programmes and works closely with local partners, helping young people build long-term opportunities for themselves while contributing positively to their communities and society.
The partnership reflects the Foundation’s focus on locally rooted approaches that respond to local needs and can develop and expand over time to reach more young people and communities.
IdéeSport’s ActiveWeek programme provides children with a week of sport and physical activity during the school holidays. Municipalities and companies finance places for children, creating an accessible and inclusive programme that supports physical activity, social interaction and well-being, while also helping working parents balance family and professional responsibilities.
In 2025, the Foundation supported the expansion of ActiveWeek to additional locations. From 2026, we are also supporting IdéeSport in developing a financially sustainable model that can enable the programme to grow further and reach more children over time.
Hospital at Home is one example of how the Foundation supports innovative models of care that can help shift health systems towards health promotion and more people-centred care.
In Basel-Landschaft, we support partners working to advance Hospital at Home through catalytic funding, communications support and policy engagement. In 2025, these efforts contributed to a canton-level decision to invest significant public resources in further implementation and research. In 2026, the Foundation also agreed to co-finance an implementation study exploring how Hospital at Home can best be integrated into the regional health system.
Hospital at Home explores how appropriate treatment and recovery can increasingly take place in people’s homes, while remaining connected to professional care and support. Beyond individual projects, the wider aim is to develop scalable and financially sustainable models that can strengthen health promotion, quality of life and the long-term resilience of Switzerland’s health system.
For more information: https://hospitales.ch/
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