European Philanthropy Manifesto

A road to a Single Market for Philanthropy

While it is easy for goods and services to move freely around the European Union, it is still difficult for donors, foundations and committed citizens to operate across borders. Despite the fact that international engagement of foundations and funders is growing, our latest legal mapping confirmed that the operating environment for cross-border philanthropy within the European Union is still far from satisfactory.

Philanthropic organisations are challenged by various legal, administrative, and fiscal barriers when acting across borders, which have been estimated in the feasibility study on the European Foundation Statute to cost them around €90,000,000 to €101,700,000 per year.

These obstacles include the limitation for cross-border merging of foundations and recognition of foreign foundations in different countries, as well as limited access to foreign funding and banking services. Foundations also have to deal with a lot of red tape when operating outside of their home countries and some national laws are restrictive on how they can invest their assets to support social enterprises. 

In our European Philanthropy Manifesto, we call for these barriers to be overcome and a Single Market for our sector to be established. As a roadmap for our policy and advocacy work, we asks national and European policymakers to:

• Better recognise and engage with philanthropy
• Facilitate cross-border philanthropy across the EU
• Enable and protect the sector
• Stimulate co-granting and co-investment opportunities for public good and civil society