Germany
Germany’s philanthropy profile
€55,000 million (2023)
Pool of assets
€5400 million (2023)
Total expenditure
No data
Total employment
Germany’s foundations
25,777 (2023)
foundations
In the reported data, the 25,777 foundations are so called ‘foundations with legal capacity under civil law’. This is the only legal form of foundations whose total number is known, based on information from the foundation supervisory authorities, which is provided to the Association of German Foundations. The figures for assets and expenditure come from the 60 largest foundations under public and private law in Germany. These 60 foundations also include other legal forms than foundations with legal capacity under civil law. Five billion euros – this is the minimum amount that the financially strongest foundations in Germany distribute to fulfil their statutory purposes in 2023. The expenditure figure noted above (€5.4 billion) outlines total expenditure, inclusive of statutory purposes and administrative expenditure. Since only the largest foundations were taken into account and not all annual reports are publicly available, the actual total contribution of Germany’s largest foundations to society is much higher.