Europa Nostra presented the “Foundations4Heritage” initiative in Warsaw
From 31 May to 2 June, Europa Nostra’s Secretary General Sneska Quaedvlieg Mihailovic and Council Member Emilio Rui Vilar represented the heritage civil society in Warsaw, Poland, during the 28th Annual Conference of the European Foundation Centre. This year’s conference focused on “Courage to re-embrace solidarity in Europe – Can philanthropy take the lead?”and gathered around 500 philanthropic leaders and representatives from foundations, not-for profit organisations, academia and policymakers. In this frame, the European Foundation Centre and its Chief Executive Gerry Salole kindly hosted a lunch meeting on 31 May with the aim to present Europa Nostra’s “Foundations4Heritage” initiative to its foundation members actively engaged in the field of heritage.
Around 20 representatives from 11 key European foundations joined the lunch meeting, namely the Compania di San Paolo (Italy), European Cultural Foundation (The Netherlands), Fondazione CRT (Italy), Sabanci Foundation (Turkey), Fondation de France (France), Fritt Ord Foundation (Norway), Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (The Netherlands), Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Greece), Fondazione Cariplo (Italy) and Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany). Among them, some already participated in the second European meeting of the “Foundations4Heritage” initiative organised in Lisbon on 7 April 2017 while others were presented with this new initiative for the first time. The lunch meeting provided an ideal atmosphere for networking and discussing the possible next steps to establish a foundation platform for cooperation in the field of heritage, which will ensure a successful European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018.
The Conference ended with the election of Massimo Lapucci, Secretary General of Fondazione CRT (Italy), as new Chair of the European Foundation Centre for the next three years. He will be supported by Katherine Watson as Vice Chair (European Cultural Foundation, The Netherlands), and Christina Lambropoulou as Treasurer (Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Greece). Europa Nostra warmly salutes these new appointments and look forward to further join forces in order to demonstrate the vital engagement of “Foundations4Heritage” in Europe.
Congrats to new Chair of @The_EFC @MassimoLapucci 👏👏 👏 Let us join forces to demonstrate vital engagement of #Foundations4Heritage in Europe https://t.co/IUk2MGnuTH
— Europa Nostra (@europanostra) June 2, 2017
The “Foundations4Heritage” initiative is supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union in the framework of Europa Nostra’s 3-year network project “Mainstreaming Heritage (2014-2017). In September 2017, Europa Nostra will start implementing its new EU-funded network project “Sharing Heritage – Sharing Values” (2017-2021), seeking to further build and strengthen a heritage-related networking and cooperation platform for European foundations.
