New data finds that Swiss grantmakers contribute twice as much as thought

Grantmaking foundations in Switzerland give approximately 6bn CHF (€6.4bn) to charities each year – double the figure previously assumed.

This is according to the latest Rapport sur les Fondations en Suisse 2025 by SwissFoundations, a network representing the country’s foundations, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Basel and University of Zurich.

The higher estimate is the result of new anonymised data being made available to Basel researchers by the Autorité fédérale de surveillance des fondations, the public body overseeing foundations nationally.

That data showed that the 5,281 foundations subject to national oversight make grants of 4.6bn CHF per year. That data was extrapolated to cover foundations supervised at a regional (canton) or local level.

The report says that there are 13,722 registered foundations in Switzerland – a figure that has more than doubled in the past 20 years – and that during 2024, 298 new foundations were created and 268 were closed.

Nearly half (49.1%) of those 13,722 can be considered grantmaking foundations. A third are ‘operational foundations’, i.e. ones working on the ground, and the remaining fifth are mixed – meaning they do a combination of the two.

The report looks at foundation density – the number of registered foundations per 10,000 population. For the country as a whole, the figure is 15.2. This varies significantly between cantons – ranging from 43.5 in Basel-Stadt and 34.4 in Zug, which are the country’s most affluent, to 8.8 in Thurgau and 6.8 in Aargau, which are among the least affluent cantons.

Future-proof funding

An announcement from SwissFoundations also describes foundations as “more than just funders”, and increasingly adopting new approaches to partnering with the sector, including through the organisation’s newly-launched Future-Proof Funding Initiative.

These new approaches include collaborating with partners on more open, equal-footing basis; creating an active feedback culture; and working in alliances to create pooled budgets, simplify processes, and share knowledge. They also include alternative financial models such as loans, equity investments and microfinance.

The report’s headline news will be a welcome boost to the sector after a report in January from Swissfundraising and Zewo Foundation said that public donations had dropped by 10% in 2023, to a toal of 2.25bn CHF (€2.42bn).

A Europe-wide study by Philea, released in the spring, showed that Switzerland’s foundations held more assets (€140bn) than any other country in Europe, slightly ahead of the UK (€129bn). However, the countries whose foundations handed out the most money last year were Spain (€17.6bn), France (€16bn) and the UK (€14.1bn).

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