The study "The Global Philanthropy Report: Perspectives on the global foundation sector", recently published by a group of researchers from the Hauser Institute for Civil Society at Harvard University and funded by UBS, is the most extensive analysis to date on the main trends in the world of philanthropy.
This work offers a global snapshot of this sector, in which just over 260,000 foundations operate in the 39 countries analyzed. Most of them are concentrated in Europe (60%) and North America (35%).
In total, the analyzed foundations have assets of almost 1.5 trillion dollars, mainly concentrated in the United States (60% of the total) and Europe (37%).
The number one country in this ranking is, by far, the United States, where its foundations manage assets of 890 billion dollars. The foundations of the second country in the ranking, Holland, move assets of 108 billion dollars, and those of Germany, the third country in the ranking, have 92.9 billion dollars.
Spain occupies the eighth position in the ranking with a total of 29 billion dollars in assets, just behind France and above countries like China, Australia, or Canada.
72% of foundations were created during the last 25 years, which shows that it is a fairly young and growing sector.
One of the conclusions of the study is that the philanthropic sector is very fragmented. In fact, 58% of existing foundations do not collaborate with other foundations.
There are enormous differences between foundations. Thus, half of them do not have paid staff and their budgets do not reach one million dollars, which significantly limits their capacity for action.
The area in which foundations are most active is education. One third of them work in this sector, considering that it offers the most opportunities for individuals and can also become an important engine of economic prosperity for countries.