We champion the interests of our members vis-à-vis the EU and multilateral organisations. We work towards an enabling operating environment for European philanthropy by monitoring and analysing policy and regulatory trends at national, European and international level, and engage around this agenda with policymakers and other stakeholders. We position philanthropy as a key actor on societal issues and facilitate strategic engagement and collaboration opportunities, including public-private partnerships.
Navigating challenging contexts
In Europe and around the world we continue to witness democratic backsliding, erosion of the rule of law and a deterioration in institutional trust. This democratic decline is intertwined with the shrinking civic space – the growing tendency to restrict civil society action. Our policy and advocacy work in Europe aims not only to mitigate this trend, but to actively push back.
In 2025, we continued to build our analysis hub to support our monitoring of policy developments for the operating environment for philanthropy and to inform our responses to them. We met with Cabinets of different European Commissioners to discuss our key manifesto asks around the need to create an enabling environment as well as creating more strategic dialogue and collaboration opportunities.
Our Legal Affairs Committee supported the team in this work, which is further strengthened through our network of partnerships and representation roles. A particular focus during this period included the work towards the first-ever EU Civil Society Strategy, which was published by the European Commission at the end of 2025 and includes a specific call for a more formalised dialogue among the EU and foundations/philanthropic donors around civic space as well as the creation of a Civil Society Platform.
In addition, we continued our advocacy work to safeguard the philanthropic space and enhance EU funding mechanisms for CSOs engaged in advocacy.
Key priorities included:
- Calling for a strong Multi-Annual Financial Framework supporting our core values: We actively contributed to MFF consultations to ensure philanthropy is recognised as a vital actor in the EU funding ecosystem
- Engaging with policymakers: High-level discussions with Commissioner McGrath’s and other Cabinets to drive forward policies supporting civil society including philanthropy, including contributing to over 15 EU consultations
- Advancing our European Philanthropy Manifesto: Efforts focused on advocating for a Single Market for Philanthropy, enhancing philanthropy’s impact across Europe
Highlights
We updated 40 legal and fiscal country profiles with the support of national experts which will lead to a new edition of our publication “Comparative Highlights of Foundation Laws” in 2026. These profiles and the comparative highlights bridge the national and European contexts and highlight universal issues and challenges. They enable an evidence-based dialogue among our members and, in particular, national associations of foundations and donors so that good practices can be shared and replicated, and challenges can be advocated against in other countries.
Along with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), we published a new report “Unpacking the EU AML/CFT Package: Impacts on the non-profit sector” exploring the implications of the 2024 EU Anti-Money Laundering package and its impact on the philanthropic and wider non-profit sector.
In December, we convened around 100 participants in Brussels for EuroPhilantopics 2025. EuroPhilantopics is our annual policy and advocacy event to bridge our sector with policymakers, identifying common goals, sharing best practices, and forging partnerships to address shared challenges. Highlights included Commissioner Lahbib joining a high-level session with foundations to review more strategic engagement with foundations; as well as colleagues from different DGs attending sessions throughout the day and inviting foundations to collaborate more with the European Commission around international development, media and civic space as well as research and innovation.
Alongside our members, we contributed to the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) Civil Society Week 2025 at a critical time when civic space is facing mounting pressure. With over 800 stakeholders in attendance from 17-20 March, the event focused on forging actionable strategies to strengthen participation, cohesion and resilience in our increasingly polarised societies. We used this key platform to call for an enabling environment for philanthropy.
Along with our Legal Affairs Committee, we co-organised two official sessions as part of the EESC Civil Society Liaison Group: a high-level panel on sustainable funding for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and a session on the European Civil Society Strategy. We also contributed to discussions on the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), ensuring that philanthropy’s voice is heard in shaping future EU funding structures, and together with key partners we used the opportunity to review the impact of the EU AML package on civil society.
We supported the re-launch of the European Parliament Social Economy Intergroup in March 2025, which was first created in 1990 to ensure a permanent dialogue between all European Institutions, Member States and the Social Economy sector. It is of vital importance to mainstream the social economy perspective into the legislative and non-legislative work of the European Parliament.
Representing the interests of the sector
We represented the sector in various EU Committees (such as at the European Commission Policy Forum on Development; Global Gateway CSO & Local Authorities Advisory Platform; and the EESC CSO Liaison Group) as well as expert groups (such as the Social Economy Expert group of the European Commission). We also spoke at various policy-related events, including:
- On 7 February at the EESC CESE Social Economy Category meeting around the report "Benchmarking the socio-economic performance of the EU social economy". The study found that the social economy employs 11.5 million people in the EU through 4.3 million enterprises and organisations. We provided data on the philanthropy sector and stressed how relevant data collection is for better recognition of the sector in delivering on the EU Social Economy Action Plan.
- We ensured that philanthropy, alongside the wider civil society and policymakers, contributed to the Polish Civil EU Presidency event in Warsaw on 17 June, highlighting the growing need to rebuild democratic trust. Poland held the EU Council Presidency from 1 January to 30 June 2025, prioritising security, competitiveness and enlargement.
- The EU Policy Forum for Development and Global Gateway meetings throughout the year called for a more strategic dialogue with the philanthropy sector. These included a Philea and "la Caixa" Foundation meeting with DG INTPA to discuss paths for collaboration which was picked up by Commissioner Sikela and Director General Koen Doens.
- Together with Civil Society and Social Economy partners, we made the case for a European Cross-Border Association Directive, for example by speaking with European Commission DG GROW at a Civil Society Europe event on 17 June.
- We actively engaged with the academic sector around philanthropy research, including co-shaping the 2025 ERNOP conference in Heidelberg in September by organising "safe space" conversations before the actual conference to bridge academic and practitioner perspectives as well as during the conference itself by speaking at sessions on data and foundation governance and taking part in the closing panel.
“Stronger partnership with philanthropy can help Europe advance on our common priorities. We share the same values. We pursue the same goals: protecting public health, fighting the impact of climate change, defending democracy and equality, saving lives in crises, and making sure every child gets a decent education – even in a conflict.”
Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner, at EuroPhilantopics 2025
Building bridges between national and EU level
Alongside VolkswagenStiftung and Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen, we jointly called for a better European framework for foundations and wider civil society at the annual Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen conference in Hannover from 14-15 May.
To celebrate 1 October, the annual European Day of Foundations and Donors, we spoke at the opening panel of the Spanish Association of Foundations' DEMOS 2025 “Frontiers of Philanthropy” event in Sevilla, inviting reflections on the new challenges for philanthropy in a geopolitical, military and commercial context filled with uncertainties and risks that Europe will have to face in the coming years.
We continued to engage around the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the EU on current policy developments to reduce money laundering and terrorism financing to ensure that policies are rights-based, fit for purpose, proportionate to the level of threat, and respect fundamental rights and values. Our input resulted in positive changes for the non-profit sector, specifically in the FATF standards relevant to NPOs and related policies.
We secured measures in the Social Economy Action Plan, specifically for foundations and philanthropy, such as a call to Member States to overcome barriers to cross-border philanthropy and the issuing of templates and guidelines at EU level.
Enlarging and promoting the toolbox for philanthropy
We facilitated debates and helped raise awareness of the importance of impact investing and produced a policy briefing on the subject with Impact Europe. Within the context of the InvestEU programme, we continued to contribute to the design of a co-investment facility with different expert conversations involving the sector, the European Commission and EIB/EIF.
Facilitating dialogue and collaboration
We continued our partnership with The Partnering Initiative, which aims to scale up effective multi-sector collaboration globally, collecting cases and generating learnings from Public-Private-Philanthropy Partnerships (PPPP). We also continued to be an active board member of Social Economy Europe (SEE) and a key partner for Civil Society Europe.
Partnerships
Throughout the year, we collaborated strategically with civil society and positioned philanthropy as part of the wider civil society and, in the context of our seat in the EESC CSO Liaison Group, joined efforts around drafting the European Civil Society Strategy.
Together with the European Commission, we organised public and philanthropic donor dialogues around democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights with DG Justice, EEA & Norway grants, USAID and the philanthropy sector.