The Big Society to follow in banking foundations’ footsteps

Thanks to the disposal of public investments in the social sector, boosted by the current economic crisis, banking foundations have become the primary protagonists of local welfare systems, they are the main actors of the Italian Big Society.

In Italy there exist 88[1] banking foundations with assets of 54 billion euro. 47 foundations are located in the north of the country, 30 in the centre and 11 in the south. In 2010, 76.7% of the budget surplus, equal to 1’366.6 million euro, were allocated to 27’084 philanthropy activities.

Among the main sectors receiving this amount of money, those related to welfare are especially social assistance (12.3%), volunteering (9.6%), family support (2.4%) and health (1.8%), apart from hospital services. 26.9% of resources were allocated to foundations, 12.2% to associations, 4.7% to non profit organisations, 3.2% to social cooperatives and 17,9% to other institutions. 35.1% of resources were allocated to public organisations.

As you may notice, Foundations represent an important opportunity for local communities. There exist, anyway, some critical aspects to focus on.

First of all, in Italy the situation is not homogeneous from north to nouth. 70% of resources are allocated to the north, 24.7% to the centre and 5.4% to the south. Consequently, in this area already characterized by a strong lack of public services, inequality increases. Secondly, there exists the risk of proposing again broadly distributed financial aids. Thirdly, we witness an increasingly higher competiveness and fragmentation of the subjects providing services, both on the private and the public level. Finally, if Foundations do not acquire more professionalism and appropriate analysis instruments, some assistance intervention models might be applied. In order to solve these problems, it necessary to start a programming process involving all the existing actors on the national level, each with its peculiarities, but aiming at implementing a welfare system able to guarantee equal citizenship rights.

[1] The data refer to the ACRI, the Italian Association of Foundations and Saving Banks.