Refining the path to impact with and for young people
2024 marked an important moment for Fondation Botnar with the launch of our refined philanthropic strategy, Pathways to Young People’s Wellbeing. This strategic refinement builds on our work with and for young people to contribute to a world that supports their wellbeing and respects, protects and fulfils their rights.
In a world of growing uncertainty and shrinking spaces for democracy, human rights and marginalised perspectives, especially for young people, the work of Fondation Botnar becomes ever more critical. The past year has shown that young people, their experiences, their work and their perspectives, make the difference when it comes to shaping a more inclusive future. Fondation Botnar’s aim to support platforms and amplify young people’s voices so they can influence policies and realities for a better world remains relevant and vital.
With the refined strategy, we are focusing our engagement on four themes where we believe we can make the biggest difference for young people in this changing world: mental health promotion, quality public education, a human rights-respecting digital transformation and liveable city systems. For Fondation Botnar, change must come from and together with young people; youth participation is and remains the cornerstone of all our projects and programmes.
We know that contributing to systemic change is ambitious; therefore, alongside the refined strategy, Fondation Botnar has developed an innovative framework to measure and demonstrate how our contributions generate outcomes and impact at the local, regional and ultimately on the global level. We look forward to sharing insights from this work in the coming months.
Working in partnership with young people, local partners, civil society, international organisations, and in collaboration with foundations around the world, will be key to achieving our goal.
We are looking forward to our continued collaboration and your support.
Elsbeth Müller
Board Chair, Fondation Botnar
Andrea Studer
CEO, Fondation Botnar
Change must come from and together with young people
Our refined philanthropic strategy:
Pathways to young people’s wellbeing
2024 saw the unveiling of our refined philanthropic strategy. This strategy update reflects our first years of operation and the first independent evaluation of our organisation. The refinement process, which involved targeted consultation with young people around the world, took stock of our strategy, management, grantmaking processes, and results to date. The process also involved a closer look at others in the philanthropic sector with external analysis accompanied by deep internal reflection and alignment.
The revised strategy, ‘Pathways to young people’s wellbeing’, provides an additional focus that will guide our philanthropic engagement over the next six years. It will contribute to enabling conditions for young people’s wellbeing, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Our refined strategy focuses on two areas. The first is investing in biomedical research for child and young people’s health, as this field is still largely not addressing their specific needs. As part of this, we have launched the Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering (BIIE), an independent research institute in Basel, Switzerland, to advance the understanding of children’s and young people’s immune systems. This will form the basis for development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics to improve the health of children and young people around the globe. In addition, through our support of the Basel Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH) we aim to drive children and young people’s health globally, with a research focus on paediatric digital health.
Our second area focuses on the urban and digital spaces where many young people live, learn, work, connect and play. We have chosen to focus on urban and digital spaces because we recognise that urbanisation and digitalisation are major trends of the 21st century, presenting both opportunities and challenges for young people. This enables us to address the drivers of and create conditions conducive to young people’s wellbeing, focusing on eight countries: Romania, Ecuador, Colombia, Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
To address challenges and seize opportunities, we identified four interrelated areas where we believe we can make the biggest difference:
Enabling liveable and sustainable city systems
Enabling a human rights-based digital transformation
Promoting
mental health
Strengthening quality
public education
For each of these four thematic areas, we are developing a portfolio of projects and activities which build on existing work. At the same time, we strive to increasingly link these portfolios. Read more about our thematic focus here.
Measuring impact in a complex world
How do we know if we’re making a difference? In philanthropy, understanding what difference we make can be challenging, especially when working on the underlying conditions that affect young people’s wellbeing. In 2024, we developed a new strategic learning and evaluation (SLE) approach to guide our continuous portfolio development and maximise the effectiveness of our actions in driving systemic change.
Our approach to understanding the difference we make and how we make that difference starts with collaboration. Instead of applying a one-size-fits-all framework, we work closely with local partners to co-create solutions that are meaningful within their environments but still aligned with our broader strategy.
The SLE-led portfolio-building approach consists of five interconnected elements:
Our long-term vision for systemic change in each theme.
The concrete areas in which we want to see change.
The types of actions we think are needed to make these changes happen.
Flexible measures to track diverse results in each domain of change.
A continuous cycle of adaptation and improvement.
Together, we select key areas related to our themes where progress is needed and identify related outcomes tailored to each context. We then develop project activities aligned with the strategic actions to achieve the envisioned changes, again, tailored to the context. Once the partners report on their outcomes, the outcome baskets and domains of change help us to aggregate these and understand patterns across projects and portfolios, allowing us to adaptively manage them. This helps us gather evidence, learn, and adapt as conditions evolve. This ensures our work remains relevant, effective, and sustainable. Through this approach, Fondation Botnar is also contributing to a broader shift in philanthropic practice – one which puts the knowledge and experience of local partners at the centre.
Spotlight on supporting purpose-led ventures
To effectively implement our refined strategy, Fondation Botnar complements its grant-making with venture philanthropy investments. By investing in early-stage start-ups in our focus countries, we foster entrepreneurship and innovation that address challenges linked to our thematic areas. This market-based approach contributes to transformative change, particularly in LMICs, by supporting businesses that align with our mission and generate measurable impact.
Since 2021, Fondation Botnar has made 34 investments across its eight focus countries, leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative instruments to create impact for sustainable development. Venture philanthropy exemplifies our commitment to systemic change and forms an important part of our commitment to act innovatively, take risks and use all means necessary to effect lasting change for young people worldwide.
Stories of change:
How young people are shaping their future
Young people are at the forefront of making change happen. Initiatives like OurCity, Fit4Future, Being, and RIGHTS Click demonstrate how youth perspectives and collaboration are shaping solutions to today’s challenges. These programmes showcase the power of young people in building a more inclusive and sustainable future.
As young people, we do not have to sit back and wait for others to do something about a problem. We can also do something. We are limitless – smart, brave and intelligent.
Priscilla
Youth participant, GSTEP
Amplifying voices:
Young people shaping global conversations
Our world is home to the largest youth generation in history, with 1.9 billion young people aged 10 to 24. Yet, these young people are often excluded from decisions that impact their future, and political systems still struggle to respond to their needs and aspirations.
In 2024, we continued to amplify young people’s voices and expand opportunities for them to participate in key events, including by co-creating discussions and spaces to shape a more inclusive and sustainable future.
I believe that everyone has the power to make changes. Start from little things, and you will see big changes.
Van Giang
CityShaper, UN-Habitat Vietnam
As a young person, I really believe in the power of youth to speak up in decision making spaces, and my motto is: nothing without us is for us.
Marie Mokuba
Global Youth Mobiliser, Restless Development
Moments and milestones:
A look back at 2024
Click through to explore moments and milestones from the past year.
One of the bigger challenges for adolescents is the lack of safety in digital spaces to interact and peer-to-peer learning, and also just basic access to the internet.
Laure Ostos Garzon
National Co-ordinator, HCA Ecuador
Sharing perspectives:
Media coverage on driving change
“TangaYetu’s impact lands at a systemic level, addressing the roots of the city’s challenges.”
“A Swiss-based foundation is taking a different approach to philanthropy in the coastal city of Tanga, where dozens of projects are aimed at making the city more liveable and equitable.”
“By 2027, the city of Barranquilla will have an integrated youth ecosystem coordinated around an agenda.”
“Afya-Tek has proven particularly beneficial for adolescents, a demographic often underserved in healthcare systems. The programme has reached nearly 28,000 adolescents, providing them with vital health information and services.”
