History

The Volkart Foundation was founded in Winterthur on 1 February 1951 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Gebrüder Volkart trading company. The company’s partners at the time – Georg, Peter and Balthasar Reinhart – wanted to express their gratitude for a century of successful trading in the Indian subcontinent and Europe. The foundation’s founders felt it was only right for part of the company’s profits to be returned to society through the sponsorship of cultural and community projects. The promotion of culture thereby became a formal part of Volkart’s activities and today the Reinhart family continues to be dedicated to this cause.

During its first 50 years, the Volkart Foundation concentrated primarily on cultural, social and environmental projects, engaging in selected projects at both the national and international level. Since 2000, the foundation has expanded its scope to include development cooperation and approaches for tackling socially relevant issues.

In 2014, the Volkart Foundation merged with Volkart Vision and also took over the activities of the George Foundation, which was dissolved. At the end of 2018, the Volkart Foundation ended its longstanding commitment in the field of development cooperation and shifted its focus to the fields of society and culture.

From 2022, the Volkart Foundation set new priorities and created the funding areas “Ecology”, “Social sector”, “Media” and “Documentary film”, which are supported by expert commissions. The funding areas “Society” and “Culture” were replaced at the end of 2021.

The Volkart Foundation is a founding member of SwissFoundations.