Data on Governance and Strategy of Italian Foundations

Abstract

Two empirical surveys on the main Italian Foundations have investigated the adopted model of governance, its main characteristics and the degree of correspondence with respect to the theoretical references.

Topics discussed in the course of the investigation concerns with:

• the role of the respondent in the Foundation and its main skills;

• the degree of diffusion and adoption of the main postulates of strategic philanthropy;

• the prevalent intervention profile (granting or operating) and the weight of the traditional classes of governance activities (ex ante/programming, ex post/control);

• the suitability perceived by the individual respondents to the role of support for strategic philanthropy;

• the characteristics and usefulness assigned to the planning and control process;

• the usefulness assigned to specific governance activities to support the traditional steering and control tasks;

• the economic and social performances of the Foundation;

• the size of the assets and the areas of intervention.

Results provide a comforting picture on the state of health of main Italian Foundations. In particular, from the analysis of the main competences of the respondents emerges a widespread managerial approach and classical planning and control tools are evaluated positively and considered as an incentive to the learning process. The size of the Foundation is not so relevant. In fact, we observe organisations that, although being smaller and having less resources, are able to generate performances, mainly on the social side, comparable to Foundations and institutions that have greater economic resources. This stems from careful management and monitoring of projects and from an efficient rationalisation of available resources.