AREA RISERVATA

Area di intervento: Cross-sectoral Activities & Mandate Challenges Area

Community Foundations

The Community Foundations activated and supported by Fondazione Cariplo represent Italy’s version of the eponymous foundations created in North America in the early 20th century. However, they also form part of the long history of attention to social issues frequently seen in Italy. Specifically, Fondazione Cariplo has adapted the model imported from the United States by activating independent, autonomous bodies in the local areas under its jurisdiction, to disseminate further its support for smaller and less structured non-profit organisations, which often experience difficulties responding to the philanthropic initiatives proposed by the Foundation. Since 1999, it has created and continues to support 16 Community Foundations working in Lombardy and in the provinces of Novara and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (one community foundation for each province, except for the Milan Metropolitan Area where three such Foundations operate).

The “Community Foundations” project is the largest and longest-lasting project led by Fondazione Cariplo: since 2019, over €580 million have gone to support Community Foundations and the local areas in which they operate.

Community Foundations have achieved a total capitalisation of approximately €308 million (as at 31/12/2023); they contribute every year to supporting over 3,000 projects in the area with annual grants of approximately €40 million awarded to non-profit organisations in their catchment areas.

For Giovanni Azzone, Fondazione Cariplo Chairman: “Community Foundations have reached maturity, just like a person does, at the age of 25. They have significant assets and are now acknowledged interlocutors. Local people, institutions and companies are aware of and put trust in them, which is the key factor for working together. They have conscientious professionals among the bodies’ members and among the practitioners and collaborators who combine what they do with an extra bit of spirit. A winning mix of managerial skills and sensitivity. Fondazione Cariplo relies on them, aware that it can count on a unique network that reaches even the most remote locations, according to an approach of listening and responding to needs, even of those who live in villages where there often seems to be little or nothing, but which actually have treasures of great value: the strength of relationships that keeps the world turning and makes things happen”.

The Community Foundations in the Fondazione Cariplo ‘system’:

  • are autonomous, independent philanthropic institutions that aim to attract and aggregate bodies and resources to carry out initiatives of general interest to support a community (a province)
  • address the needs of local communities by promoting the culture of giving and the participation of citizens, non-profit organisations, public bodies and private companies
  • perform a role of ‘philanthropy mediator’: they collect resources (donations, grants, bequests); they stimulate and collect projects of general interest (via calls for proposals, working groups, co-design, etc.); they award grants (through calls, non-call projects, philanthropic funds); they evaluate the effect of the activities supported.

Community Foundations therefore represent infrastructure in the name of communities and can catalyse and connect resources and the needs of communities. They can also create alliances between donors – people, companies, informal groups and institutions – and non-profit organisations to carry out interventions aimed at responding to local priorities and at improving the well-being and quality of life of the relevant population.

Fondazione Cariplo has dedicated a specific ‘Observatory Handbook’ to Community Foundations, which explores the dynamics that have marked the establishment and evolution of these bodies. The publication identifies their specific characteristics and modus operandi, their most innovative activities and the future plans they are adopting to face the challenges of the future.Le Fondazioni di Comunità attivate e sostenute da Fondazione Cariplo rappresentano la declinazione italiana delle Community Foundation nate in Nord America all’inizio del ‘900, ma si innestano nella lunga storia di attenzione al sociale tipica della storia italiana. Fondazione Cariplo, in particolare, ha declinato il modello importato dagli Stati Uniti attivando sul territorio di propria competenza enti indipendenti e autonomi, capaci di rendere più capillare il sostegno di Fondazione Cariplo alle realtà non profit più piccole e meno strutturate, che spesso hanno difficoltà a rispondere alle iniziative filantropiche proposte da Fondazione Cariplo. A partire dal 1999 ha fatto nascere e tutt’ora sostiene 16 Fondazioni di Comunità attive sul territorio lombardo e nelle province di Novara e Verbano Cusio Ossola (una fondazione di comunità per ogni provincia, ad eccezione dell’Area Metropolitana milanese in cui operano tre Fondazioni di Comunità).

Community Foundations

Consult the list of Community Foundations operating in local areas.

Find out more

Azionamenti | Workshop of possibilities

Azionamenti – Workshop of possibilities is an initiative promoted by Fondazione Cariplo, aimed at preventing school dropout and encouraging educational success in the younger generations. The project aims to support students in fulfilling their potential and developing pathways for personal and professional growth, while strengthening the role of schools as a space for opportunity, participation and innovation.

The approach adopted is based on schools opening up to local areas and communities: companies, institutions, associations and professionals are engaged in abroader educational alliance that can offer young people significant experiences of encounter, discovery and experimentation. Students therefore have the opportunity to experience different models and life stories, to reflect on their attitudes and to put their skills into practice through workshop and planning activities.

The course is designed to leverage various forms of learning and to stimulate students’ motivation, curiosity and independence, encouraging dialogue between theoretical and practical knowledge. As such, schools become workshops of possibilities, where everyone can find tools and resources to build their own plans for their lives and futures.

With a total investment of approximately €2 million, the project has to date involved 22 middle and high schools located in the area for action; it is proposed as a model aimed at strengthening the effectiveness of local educational policies and at promoting a shared culture of innovation and participation.

Since 2025, Azionamenti has formed part of the ZeroNEET challenge.

TOP – Tutoring Online Program

TOP – Tutoring Online Programme is an innovative online study support project, trialled starting in 2020 based on an idea at Bocconi and Harvard Universities, aimed at bridging the widening educational poverty aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Educational poverty, i.e. the condition whereby a student is not guaranteed the right to learn, train, acquire skills and cultivate their passions and abilities, particularly affects the most vulnerable children, from families with economic and social difficulties, but also affects those with cognitive and behavioural difficulties or emotional and interpersonal problems. 

In 2021, as part of its Social & Human Services Area, Fondazione Cariplo decided to invest in the programme to consolidate its model and increase its impact on its catchment area, entrusting its operational management to CIAI (Italian Centre for Child Aid) and continuing the collaboration with the founding universities. 

TOP is aimed at middle school leavers in the Lombardy Region and offers them the support of volunteer university students from Lombardy universities. The participating schools refer students based on their need for school support, but also on other characteristics such as the ability to recognise their educational needs and the desire to address them. The tutors are volunteer university students, who receive training on pedagogical principles and tutoring methodologies, conducted by Bicocca University, as well as on the Child Protection Policy – CPP, consisting of guidelines to be followed in relations with children, edited by CIAI. 

Tutors (volunteer university students) and tutees (middle school students) are paired based on certain characteristics, including language skills, tutoring experience, academic course, time availability, subjects in which support is requested or offered and any previous training in the field of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The choice of a peer learning approach, which links up people relatively close to each other in age and experience, aims to encourage an exchange and discussion that is as equal as possible. 

Tutoring takes place entirely online over the Tutornow platform. Tutors and tutees also have a supervisor as a point of reference, who contacts them to support the tutoring process and encourage dialogue with the school and the tutee’s family. For students who need it, TOP provides refurbished devices and an internet connection, made possible by an agreement with TechSoup Italia. 

The results of the mentoring programme have been recorded via an impact assessment according to the counterfactual approach, conducted by Bocconi University. The analyses of previous editions showed that participation in TOP had a positive influence not only on academic performance (three months of tutoring is equivalent to approximately nine months of classroom learning), but also on educational aspirations and the children’s psychological and socio-emotional well-being. In light of the programme’s results, especially in terms of the beneficiaries’ academic performance, from 2025 the TOP programme formed part of the prevention activities of the ZeroNEET mandate challenge, under the Cross-sectoral Philanthropic Activities & Mandate Challenges Area. 

Institutional partners

  • Fondazione Cariplo: the programme promoter and funder, it supervises the entire process and relations with the parties involved. 
  • CIAI (Italian Centre for Child Aid): implementing partner of the programme, responsible for operational management. As part of TOP, it is responsible for recruiting and training supervisors to work with tutors, providing training on the Child Protection Policy and controlling its application, maintaining relations with schools and technical partners, and monitoring project progress by keeping in regular contact with the team. 
  • Bocconi University: programme creator and scientific partner, responsible for impact assessment, in conjunction with Harvard University. It is responsible for attracting applications from middle schools and tutors, for matching tutors and tutees using an algorithm that pairs their characteristics, and for administration of evaluation questionnaires to all the parties involved, to carry out the impact assessment. 
  • Bicocca University, Milan: responsible for tutors’ pedagogical and methodological training. It is responsible for training both tutors and supervisors, organises supervision meetings for tutors, and assesses the impact of the chosen tutoring model on the tutors’ skills development. 

Technical partners

  • Tutornow: the platform on which all TOP activities take place. It ensures a safe environment and provides tools for running lessons. 
  • TechSoup: an international non-profit organisation, providing technological solutions to the third sector. As part of TOP, it is responsible for reconditioning devices and distributing them to students who request them. 

Lombardy universities in conjunction with TOP for volunteer tutors

  • IULM 
  • Polytechnic University of Milan 
  • Bocconi University 
  • Carlo Cattaneo University – LIUC 
  • Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore 
  • University of Insubria 
  • University of Bergamo 
  • University of Brescia 
  • Bicocca University, Milan 
  • University of Pavia 
  • Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele