Grants for projects

Grants for projects is sponsored by Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation. The Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation supports actions that add value to culture, people, and the planet. They implement their grant-making through calls for proposals, guidelines, and other structured selection processes, as well as speculative applications.

The Foundation Review The Foundation Review a publication of the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University a publication of the Dorothy A.

Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University Community Leadership and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) # Doing Philanthropy at the Time of the Sustainable Development Doing Philanthropy at the Time of the Sustainable Development # Goals: The Case of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Goals: The Case of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Fulvio Bersanetti Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Filippo Candela Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Paolo Mulassano Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.

gvsu. edu/tfr Part of the Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons , Public Administration Commons , Public Affairs Commons , and the Public Policy Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Bersanetti, F. , Candela, F.

, & Mulassano, P. (2021). Doing Philanthropy at the Time of the Sustainable Development Goals: The Case of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo.

The Foundation Review, 13 (4). https://doi. org/10.

9707/1944-5660. 1587 Review is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. https://scholarworks.

gvsu. edu/tfr The Foundation Review // Vol 13:4 7Philanthropy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo # Doing Philanthropy at the Time of the Sustainable Development Goals: The Case of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Fulvio Bersanetti, M. A.

, Filippo Candela, Ph. D. , and Paolo Mulassano, Ph.

D.

, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Keywords: Innovative philanthropy, impact, ecosystem developer, SDG, sustainability, data-driven foundation, Agenda 2030, Compagnia di San Paolo Adopting Sustainability in the Philanthropic Sector Compagnia di San Paolo, founded in Turin in 1563 to promote cultural, social, and economic development in northwestern Italy, was the first Italian foundation of banking origin to promote a strategic and operational alignment with the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in 2020.

Although the Agenda is primarily addressed to govern-ments and policymakers, this people-centered set of transformative goals and targets calls for collective mobilization among all stakeholders to implement a universal plan for people, the planet, and prosperity.

The more society, indi-viduals, and communities are aware of the issues surrounding local sustainable development, the more successful the process of convergence toward the goals will be. Public involvement in the SDG framework has increased in recent years, and a growing number of governments, private institutions and organi-zations, corporations, and nonprofits have begun a process of alignment.

In addition to fostering collaboration among stakeholders, philan-thropy can help these efforts through advocacy, facilitating implementation, and engaging in outreach activities that address the core human development, economic, and environmen-tal needs expressed in the SDGs (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, 2019).

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), private philanthropic funding for these efforts amounted to USD $7. 8 billion in 2018 (OECD, 2020) and has played a • This article outlines how strategic philan-thropy can align its mission with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by describing the experience of the most important foundation of bank-ing origin in Italy.

Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo marked a milestone in 2020 in aligning with the Agenda, applying the Sus-tainable Development Goals as a rigorous, internationally shared methodological framework and restructuring its operations to focus on three programmatic efforts — Planet, People, and Culture — aligned with those goals.

• To complete our examination of this transformation, we conducted a bench-mark analysis involving nine case studies of foundations in Europe and the United States to identify the level of engagement and convergence of each with the 2030 Agenda framework.

• This article begins with an introduction to the topic of sustainability in the philan-thropic sector, which is followed by a case study of the Compagnia di San Paolo’s path to adoption of the framework.

It then mea-sures the impact of its activities through quantitative indicators, highlighting the foundation’s transformation, and concludes with a comparison between Compagnia di San Paolo’s approaches and some inter-national best practices to provide a better understanding of our long-term positioning in the international context. doi: 10. 9707/1944-5660.

1587 8 The Foundation Review // thefoundationreview. org Bersanetti, Candela, and Mulassano economically, environmentally, and institution-ally sustainable development in which no one is left behind. Launched in the 1990s by the Aspen Institute (Connell et al.

, 1995), the TOC is now being adopted by major grantmaking organiza-tions as a guide and evaluation tool.

It focuses on a performance management approach that can be used for multiple purposes: to evaluate alter-native programs; plan and implement initiatives; understand the ecosystem in which you operate and how it will affect your ability to achieve impact; and communicate internally and exter-nally about your strategy and at multiple levels.

For modern philanthropy, this TOC can be seen as an impact model that can help donors allocate financial resources in a rational and strategic way to implement effective projects in line with their mission and vision. A foundationwide TOC frames the types of investments and pri-orities an organization has selected through the lens of impact.

This means that philanthropic bodies mainly invest not only in programs with clearly defined outputs in their role of “impact facilitator,” but also in terms of outcomes in their role of “impact generator. ” In other words, to assess a program’s success, once a grant or an investment has been made, foundations need to verify concrete performance and results in terms of outcomes.

In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore problems that existed before the crisis and required us to learn lessons and act proactively to promote more sustainable activ-ities, such as aligning grants and investments with social programs and climate policy, which will be critical for the decarbonization agenda.

Promoting resilience is key to being prepared for the exceptional events and climate risks driven by global warming. Working for digital devel-opment is also of paramount importance, as the adoption of technology is likely to accelerate in the coming decades.

Aligning With the 2030 Agenda For the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, adopting this rigorous and universal frame-work is a way of identifying the main problems that need to be solved at the local level, using key role in financing the social sector, including health care and education. Engaging in philanthropy to pursue the SDGs creates the right conditions to harness new, innovative solutions.

With this approach, philanthropy is seen not only as a source of money, but also as a means to enable ecosystem development.

This involves investing in solu-tions that support innovation and collaboration, including advocating the growth of a culture of sustainability, using technology to link donors and recipients, implementing capacity-building programs to help make better use of existing resources, and using data to build transparency and to drive and inform decisions.

One of the basic functions of grantmaking foundations should be to experiment with new models of intervention (and test their effectiveness) to address the most relevant issues, empowering society’s best forces — universities, research institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and other associations — to operate.

If this is the goal, a failure can be as useful as a success: A demonstration of ineffectiveness is a way to avoid repeating models and techniques that fail to achieve intended goals.

From this perspective, the 2030 Agenda offers a global and universal theory of change (TOC), because it is no longer conceivable to propose social intervention strategies that do not con-tribute to the deployment of a model of socially, ## [T]he COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore problems that existed before the crisis and required us to learn lessons and act proactively to promote more sustainable activities, such as aligning grants and investments with social programs and climate policy[.]

The Foundation Review // Vol 13:4 9Philanthropy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo it as a filter for selecting proposals to prioritize action in accordance with the U. N. guidelines.

Through these goals and targets, we are setting out an ambitious and transformational vision based on respect for the environment, social equality, health and well-being, and scientific research and innovation. Organization and Human Resources as Drivers of Innovation Historically, the foundation’s operations were organized around five areas of expertise. (See Table 1.)

As of January 2020, they were restruc-tured to pursue three goals — People, Culture, and Planet — by way of 14 missions, with each goal reflecting those original areas. (See Table 2.) Each mission has several tool kits that represent Compagnia di San Paolo’s traditional opera-tions as a philanthropic organization (calls for proposals, agreement protocols, instrumental/ participating bodies, free grant applications, etc).

This gradual transition to the U. N.

frame-work has also encompassed human capital Art, Cultural Activities, and Heritage Philanthropy and Territory Cultural Innovation Social Policies Research and Health Cultural attractors Social innovation Cultural enterprise Welfare University system Places of culture Circular society Science and society Active inclusion International affairs Performing arts Community philanthropy Cultural and civic innovation Proximity networks Health Anthropized landscape Research on the territory Contemporary languages Well-being and education Scientific research and technological innovation Early access to culture Access and participation Empowerment and integration Economic and social research Employment policies TABLE 1 The Old Organization: Areas of Expertise Art, Heritage, Participation Opportunity, Independence, Inclusion Knowledge, Development, Quality of Life Building capacity to attract Reinventing housing systems and regenerating neighborhoods Harnessing the value of research Developing skills Promoting decent work Boosting innovation Preserving beauty Educating for collective development Fostering international opportunities Encouraging active participation Rediscovering community Promoting well-being Working together for inclusion Protecting the environment TABLE 2 The New Organization: Goals and Missions 10 The Foundation Review // thefoundationreview.

org Bersanetti, Candela, and Mulassano management and human resources initiatives, enhancing capacity building (i.e., several pro-posed Agenda 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development training modules and webinars) and developing a more sustainable work envi-ronment by incentivizing gender equality and environmentally friendly behavior — public transportation subsidies and a plan to install electric vehicle charging stations free for employees’ use at the foundation’s Turin head-quarters, for example.

Networking opportunities at the international, national, and local levels have also been facili-tated. Compagnia’s top and middle management are active on institutional advisory boards and in working groups (e.g., the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development, which seeks to raise awareness among Italian society, economic stakeholders, and other institutions of the importance of the 2030 Agenda).

Another key point is the involvement of the local community in the definition of our activities’ guidelines. We have an ongoing dialogue with regional and municipal authorities, other banking founda-tions, and universities to better understand their needs and define what kind of interventions are most appropriate. > Finance: How Is Modern Philanthropy Funded?

In addition to allowing Compagnia di San Paolo to perform its institutional activity as a grantmaking body, its new configuration involves other strategic aspects. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability, for instance, becomes the core of a new, respon-sible investment policy that includes a careful and detailed assessment of the ESG compliance of the portfolio (mission-related investments).

For Compagnia di San Paolo, implementing an investment policy that helps in achieving the SDGs has an important significance. It is based on the premise of a rigorous review of the degree of sustainability of individual portfolio investments and the management policies of funds managed by third-party managers.

Historically, finance and organized philan-thropy have been seen as opposites: the former seeks profits, the latter offers its support to the nonprofit sector; one makes money (return on investment), one gives it away (by grant).

Considering their substantial assets and auton-omous governance, foundations can initiate interventions whose outcome cannot be taken for granted and without having to submit to the demands of shareholders or an electoral body for short-term, positive results.

Freed from these constraints, foundations can take long-term risks that neither public bodies nor private companies are willing to take, thus supporting intervention models that have the potential to bring positive results for the community.

In other words, impact finance seeks to generate social impact in a way that also provides financial returns, offering a good alternative to philanthropists who are look-ing to go beyond traditional grantmaking and leverage the power of markets to create change.

As an institutional and long-term investor, our foundation is developing an innovative impact finance platform, deploying a range of finan-cial tools to invest private capital for public purposes (venture capital and private-equity funds, startups, accelerators, and incubators) in support of ideas and initiatives that create a measurable and positive economic, social, and environmental impact.

The final goal is to achieve the best trade-off between impact and returns. Leading from this, assets are managed according to the principles of diversifying risk, which include stabilizing and increasing the real value of the portfolio in the long term. At the end of 2020, the total value of the Compagnia’s portfolio, valued at market prices, was €6.

7 bil-lion. The current asset allocation includes direct investments, 1 investments in mission-related investments, and investments in funds managed by third-party asset managers according to our ESG policy.

> 1These are holdings in Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, which account for approximately one third of the portfolio's total market value, and in other institutions, such as the Banca d’Italia and the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti investment bank.

The Foundation Review // Vol 13:4 11 Philanthropy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Operations: Compagnia as a Local Developer The SDGs are also being integrated into Compagnia di San Paolo’s operations and pro-cedures.

Each project is associated with one or more SDGs and related targets, from the design phase through development and imple-mentation (monitoring the established key performance indicators), in order to adapt short-term policies to the long-term strategic macro priorities. Applying a bottom-up approach, the new framework is also crucial in supporting the foundation’s governance and management board in its budgeting activities.

The alloca-tion of funds in the annual plan allows us to quantify the spending by goal and mission in order to estimate their economic contribution in achieving the SDGs. This process — from SDGs to missions — is also an innovative way to organize and implement the internal report-ing system, providing a cross-cutting overview, performance measurement, and, in the long run, a time series analysis.

For example, in 2021 we allocated €135 mil-lion (€500 million for 2021–2024) to nonprofits based in Italy’s northwest regions of Piedmont, Liguria, and Valle d’Aosta: €36. 4 million for Culture (four missions for 10 SDGs covered), €52. 4 million for People (five missions for 11 SDGs), and €44.

7 million for Planet (five mis-sions for nine SDGs). The funded projects were supported not only by money donations, but also through partnerships, including public-pri-vate collaborations, that made Compagnia di San Paolo a real ecosystem developer. Consider these examples of three strategic approaches: 1.

The call for proposals devoted to the topic of “Artificial Intelligence” (Planet goal) sus-tained three projects for a total of €3 million, promoting partnerships among nonprofit organizations, private companies, and public research institutions in the field of AI. 2.

The call for proposals named “Piedmont Region/Sub-Saharan Africa” (People goal) is an example of a foundation that sustained projects far from its local area of intervention. 3. The call for proposals related to “Switch” (Culture goal) is an example of how the foun-dation built a bridge between sectors often seen as disconnected: culture and technology.

In this case, cultural institutions were encour-aged to promote a path toward digitalization, identifying technological partners that helped them make substantive changes. Finally, our analysis shows the distribution of grants by SDG in 2020. (See Table 3.)

In a depar-ture from what we observed overall in statistics from Private Philanthropy for SDGs (OECD, 2020), Compagnia’s activity is focused on SDGs 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth; 4, > 1No Poverty €5. 9 million 2Zero Hunger €1 million 3Good Health & Well-Being €11. 3 million 4Quality Education €34.

5 million 5Gender Equality €1 million 6Clean Water & Sanitation €200,000 7Affordable & Clean Energy €200,000 8Decent Work & Economic Growth €35. 4 million 9Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure €21. 9 million 10 Reduced Inequalities €22 million 11 Sustainable Cities & Communities €25.

2 million 12 Responsible Consumption & Production €500,000 13 Climate Action €300,000 14 Life Below Water -15 Life on Land €1 million 16 Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions €4. 5 million 17 Partnership for the Goals €3. 4 million > TABLE 3 Overall Grants by Sustainable Development Goals in 2020 12 The Foundation Review // thefoundationreview.

org Bersanetti, Candela, and Mulassano Quality Education; 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities; 10, Reduced Inequalities; and 9, Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. Communication and Accountability for Sustainability Goals, Targets, and Indicators: Measuring Impact The Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo has integrated the 2030 Agenda by looking at its past, present, and future from a strategic and technical point of view.

The main aim has been to develop a systematic approach to measuring the impact of the philanthropic activity before and after the creation of the SDG framework. What follows are several approaches that we are using to demonstrate some strategies that philanthropy and the third sector as a whole can adopt to measure their impact on the SDGs.

The Past: Alignment With the SDGs Before the SDGs When the Compagnia di San Paolo was reorga-nized according to the 2030 Agenda, one of the first assumptions we made was that our philan-thropic activity was already aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The founda-tion has been working in the areas of poverty, education, and innovation for many years.

We therefore decided to verify the extent of that alignment, analyzing the many projects imple-mented between 2015 and the beginning of 2019.

Using the descriptions of 5,140 projects sub-mitted by grant seekers and supported by the foundation, we carried out a text-mining anal-ysis, comparing these descriptions with a set of keywords related to the SDGs and measuring the similarity of each description to each SDG based on a similarity score index.

3 As expected, we found that Compagnia di San Paolo was already contributing to the SDGs before its reor-ganization, especially to SDGs 1, No Poverty; 2, Zero Hunger; 4, Quality Education; 5, Gender Equality; 8, Decent Work and Economic ## The SDGs represent an opportunity to effect the challenging changes that so many foundations and charitable institutions are aiming to achieve.

> 2The foundation’s annual budget is submitted to the supervisory authority of Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance and publicly presented to all stakeholders. > 3A complete description of the methodology and subsequent results are available in “Using Open Data to Monitor the Status of a Metropolitan Area: The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Turin” (Candela & Mulassano, 2021).

The Foundation Review // Vol 13:4 13 Philanthropy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Growth; and 9, Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. Beyond this evidence, we found a strict correlation among SDGs which showed how, because of the interrelationship of poverty, employment, and education, we were able to have impact on several SDGs at the same time through the same project.

We therefore benefited from this research in several ways. First, we had empirical confirma-tion that our foundation was “compliant” and was impacting the SDGs even before the reorga-nization. This evidence was particularly useful to drive organizational change.

Second, the data gave us a better understanding of our identity in terms of the issues addressed, the contribution of each department, interrelationships, the lack of investment in specific domains, and so on. Finally, we showed that the effort required to achieve the alignment with the SDGs was feasi-ble and could be replicated by other foundations or nonprofits.

The SDGs cover a wide spectrum, and it is quite unlikely that no contribution will be made to any of them. This was a crucial approach to understanding how our institu-tion was impacting the SDGs and to designing solutions that were more relevant to the 2030 Agenda. Moreover, as previously mentioned, institutions can benefit from a deeper under-standing of their activities.

This was the case for the Compagnia di San Paolo. > The Present: Monitoring Impact on SDGs in (Near) Real Time Following the reorganization, the foundation implemented a systematic approach to moni-toring the alignment of each project submitted by grant seekers.

Now, each grant seeker that decides to participate in a specific call for pro-posals or to ask Compagnia di San Paolo for a contribution must indicate at least one of the 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda to which its project aims to contribute. This innovation allows us to monitor the contribution made by the foun-dation to the SDGs on a daily basis by noting the statements made by grant seekers.

The analysis is detailed because we can access targets that are considerably more specific than SDGs. Moreover, we can perform statistical analysis, crossing data about targets and SDGs with other information, such as departments and year of contribution. Embedding data about SDGs in our information systems allows us to develop a set of data that can be exploited in many ways.

In addition to monitoring in near-real time the contribution our foundation makes to the SDGs through solutions like dashboards or reporting, our contribution to SDGs is becoming part of our annual report, by which Compagnia di San Paolo accounts for its philanthropic activity to stakeholders.

Historically, the foundation has described its annual activity by publishing data about projects supported, euros donated through grants, and other information. Since 2020, the impact on the SDGs has become part of the foundation’s accountability.

This addition has many benefits, including the opportunity to benchmark our activity to other institutions, thanks to the 2030 Agenda framework that is recognized and commonly applied around the world. And again, we are achieving our objective with limited effort and internal com-petencies, so we assume that our approach could easily be replicated by other institutions inter-ested in monitoring their impact on the SDGs.

Another relevant project we developed to link our philanthropic activity with our region of activity and the 2030 Agenda involved the exploitation of open data — data covering a wide range of topics that are freely available to the public.

Before the project was implemented, we carried out a pilot research project (Candela & ## [E]ach grant seeker that decides to participate in a specific call for proposals or to ask Compagnia di San Paolo for a contribution must indicate at least one of the 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda to which its project aims to contribute. 14 The Foundation Review // thefoundationreview.

org Bersanetti, Candela, and Mulassano Mulassano, 2021) that highlighted the relevant potential of open data to analyze the territory and subsequent evidence-based strategic deci-sions. Following this research, we found a match between our thematic missions (environment, innovation, social housing, culture) and the 17 SDGs. We then scouted to identify open data significantly related to Compagnia di San Paolo’s missions.

Fourteen dashboards powered by open data are currently in production; we have collected data related to the last five years and periodically update the dashboard system as new data become available (monthly, quarterly, or annually). A set of information based on the connections among philanthropic domains, the SDGs, and open data is now available to Compagnia di San Paolo as a whole and, poten-tially, to our community.

This is an example of how open data can be exploited and how they can be organized, harmonizing the internal organization of a foundation with the 2030 Agenda and allowing a deep understanding to be gained of the region in which the foundation operates.

> The Future: Tuning the Current Approach to Gain Better Knowledge In the context of the Compagnia di San Paolo’s attempts to systematically align its organization with the SDG framework, we can also present some of the solutions we have developed to map, through data, the impact of our philanthropic activity on the SDGs. Despite the high level of innovation, there are obviously several areas where we can improve our approach.

One of those areas is measurement of the foun-dation’s impact. The current monitoring system is based on statements made by grant seekers; these statements may not be completely reliable. The foundation’s program officers could be instructed to verify their accuracy — although that would have a significant impact on their daily work, considering the 2,000 project pro-posals submitted each year.

It might also be useful to consider asking for additional data about the SDGs and goals achieved at the end of the project, when it is probably easier to provide a reliable report. Another possibility for improvement is in expanding the use of these data. One of the 2030 Agenda’s crucial contributions is in providing a global common framework for institutions.

But individual organizations can use data about the impact of their own activities on the SDGs not only for internal purposes, but also to determine “shared organized impact”: comparing their work with those of other organizations, which allows them to identify where they are making an impact and where they are not.

It is precisely for this reason that Compagnia di San Paolo should start comparing its impact with those of other institutions in Italy’s northwest, its main area of intervention. This will allow the founda-tion to strengthen its collaboration with other institutions and increase the overall impact on all SDGs.

Incorporating the SDGs: Benchmarks from European and U.S. Foundations We have discussed how Compagnia di San Paolo has aligned its work with the 2030 Agenda by making structural changes in operations, finance, grantmaking, monitoring, and impact evaluation. The entire activity of the foundation is currently driven by the framework defined by United Nations.

Obviously, the choice of adhering to this framework was strategic and vocational. Many institutions, in the public and private sectors, have also adopted such radi-cal organizational change; many others have focused greater attention to SDGs without such significant restructuring.

To complete our examination of the trans-formation of a philanthropic foundation to an SDG-aligned institution, we conducted a benchmark analysis involving nine case studies of foundations — in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and in the United States — to identify the level of engagement and alignment of each with the 2030 Agenda framework.

The sample comprised three U.S. philanthropies, the Bill & Melinda Gates, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations; the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Stichting INGKA Foundation/IKEA Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Robert Bosch Stiftung in Europe; and two other Italian foundations of banking origin.

The first, Fondazione Cariplo, is similar to The Foundation Review // Vol 13:4 15 Philanthropy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Compagnia di San Paolo in terms of endowment and amount of grants; the second, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, is the third largest foundation of banking origin per asset in Italy, after Cariplo and Compagnia di San Paolo.

The selection of the European and U.S. foundations was based on the relevance of the institutions in terms of assets, resources distributed, and reputation. The benchmark analysis dealt with three key dimensions: 1. the alignment of the foundations to the framework of SDGs in terms of mission and strategic activities; 2.

the explicit interest in and alignment demon-strated with SDGs in such areas as topics, organization, and communications; and 3. the presence of SDGs in the foundations’ institutional documents, especially annual reports, the official websites, and, for further insights, additional online resources. For each of the three dimensions we assigned a score of “low,” “medium,” or “high.

” It is crucial to underline that these scores did not represent a judgement or an evaluation. The 2030 Agenda is a framework proposed by United Nations to summarize the challenges for a better future and to share a common global framework. The lack of adherence to this proposal does not imply a negative attitude on the part of an institution — only a strategic decision.

Moreover, several studies (Shridar, 2016; Easterly, 2015) that have critically discussed the framework have found that these decisions were made based on per-ceived effectiveness and usefulness. (See Table 4.) In our first dimension of analysis, all foun-dations were found to be unequivocally contributing to the 2030 Agenda and Compagnia di San Paolo had the highest level of alignment with the SDGs.

We did not find a similar case > Foundation Country Mission Alignment With 2030 Agenda Explicit Attention to and Alignment With SDGs Documents That Mention SDGs > Compagnia di San Paolo Italy High High All institutional reports Fondazione Cariplo Italy High Medium Annual report Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino Italy High Low None Novo Nordisk Foundation Denmark High Low Grant report Robert Bosch Stiftung Germany High Medium None Stichting INGKA Foundation/ IKEA Foundation Sweden High Low Annual report Wellcome Trust U.K. High Low None Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation U.S. High High Goalkeepers Report Rockefeller Foundation U.S. High High Ad-hoc report Ford Foundation U.S. High Low None > TABLE 4 Foundation Alignment to 2030 Agenda: A Benchmark Analysis 16 The Foundation Review // thefoundationreview.

org Bersanetti, Candela, and Mulassano among the sample we considered; none of the other foundations demonstrated such a high level of reorganization toward and pervasiveness of SDGs.

Regarding overall alignment with the 2030 Agenda, all foundations in our sample had mis-sions aligned with the SDGs, and for two main reasons: The wide spectrum of activity covered by the goals creates a high probability that every foundation can make some contribution; and the foundations’ substantial resources allow them to fund different domains coherent with SDGs. The magnitude of contribution for each goal varied.

The work of the Fondazione Cariplo and Novo Nordisk, for example, is benefiting some SDGs more than others. In the second and third dimensions — explicit declarations about SDGs and the frequency of discussion about the topic on websites and institutional documents — many interesting differences arise in at least two subgroups and one specific case study.

The first group consists of those foundations that showed limited or absent attention to the 2030 Agenda: Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, Wellcome Trust, and the Ford Foundation. We find few references to SDGs on their websites and no explicit mention of the framework in their reports.

The second group comprises foundations that demonstrated atten-tion to and interest in the alignment of their activities with SDGs, especially with references in annual reports or through institutional part-nerships.