Les politiques de relations publiques des fondations allemandes

Les fondations sont des composantes essentielles de la vie politique allemande, mais seule une minorité d’entre elles sont connues du grand public. Dans cet article publié par Politik und Kommunikation, Katja Scheel examine la façon dont différentes fondations gèrent leur politique de communication vis-à-vis du grand public.

Foundations are often equated with classic patronage. Traditionally they aim to do good things without recognition. That kind of reluctance is not surprising: money is chosen to go into projects, rather than into publicity or marketing for the foundation’s goals. 

But proponents of civic activism argue that the new model of citizens’ foundations has renewed the classical foundation model. And it is essential that the foundations of the 21st century are communicating themselves as driving forces of social development and therefore serve important political functions. 

This is not before time. A recent study of the Bertelsmann Foundations showed that most foundations are largely unknown to the public. This shows that they are overly focused on themselves instead of communicating their main concerns to the outside world. Almost 1/3 of the German citizens believe foundations only serve the purpose of saving taxes. And more than 69% of the foundations themselves evaluate the results of their work as below average. The demand for external consulting is therefore quite high. 

Please click here to read the full Politik und Kommunikation article in German.