The Foundation has chosen to target its efforts exclusively on one of the most pressing societal challenges of our times: inequality. “The purpose of all Julius Baer activities is to create value beyond wealth. In that spirit the Julius Baer Foundation focuses, first and foremost, on serving society, especially the underprivileged communities around the globe,” says Julius Baer Chairman Romeo Lacher, who is also the President of the Foundation’s Board. “Inequality”, he adds “is an area where we feel that as an international wealth manager, we can make the biggest difference and credibly take responsibility in trying to address change.”
Building bridges
The Foundation, now nearly 60 years old, aims to create opportunities that address different systemic factors of inequality and educate about the ongoing discrepancy between the privileged and the disadvantaged by supporting various projects across the globe. Individuals, communities, and regions can only thrive with genuine collaboration across the wealth divide – a divide the Foundation aims to bridge. “As the philanthropic arm of an international wealth manager, we are able to connect both sides of the wealth spectrum through the platforms we support to provide education and share prosperity”, explains Lacher.
Lacher clarifies that inequality leads to a lack of trust, violence, and unrest that can have a deeply detrimental impact on societies across the globe. “Once we see one another for our potential rather than for our backgrounds, we start to pave the way for dialogue. And once the doors are open for everybody, innovation can ensue – a much needed innovation to solve humanity’s problems,” he adds. “Recent significant decline of social mobility has become a pressing subject given the increasing rigidity at both the bottom as well as the top of the social structure. What has been described as the problem of the broken elevator is also showing evident consequences in terms of social and political unrest in different regions of the world. Reducing wealth inequality is a key aspect in addressing these challenges, both in the redistribution of opportunities and the promotion of more social cohesion”, further underlines María Luisa Mendez from the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies in Chile.
The role of education in reducing inequality
In a society with equal opportunities, competition is the driver of innovation and progress. Without equality of opportunity, the marginalised remain excluded and unable to participate, to create better lives for themselves, to compete, or to contribute to societal progress.
While equality in opportunity is based on various systemic factors, it is largely rooted in the individual’s opportunities for self-development through education. To make a living and become constructive contributors to society, people must be able to search, discover, develop, and build their personal skill set. Therefore access to structured learning for languages, maths, economics, and IT is needed. At the same time investing in the development of resilient and multifaceted personalities as well as individual talents and networks is crucial. Both are the prerequisite for equal opportunity and a society that allows everybody to realise their full potential.
Pasi Sahlberg, Professor of Education at Southern Cross University, Australia, states: “Wealth and education inequality are interlinked. International evidence suggests that there is a negative correlation between these two. Therefore, it is fair to argue that strengthening education is a condition for reducing wealth inequalities.” The Julius Baer Foundation’s goal is to support actors that aim to reduce education inequality in an innovative and sustainable way, focusing, among others, on primary school education where the effect of interventions is most promising.
Matching donations
The Foundation’s projects are primarily funded by the Bank, donations from its employees and some clients. “Going forward, we want to strengthen the outreach to employees and hope to win more of them as supporters and donors. The Bank itself will also – in parallel – increase its annual donation to the Foundation and will start to match every donation the Foundation receives, be it from clients or employees,” adds Romeo Lacher.
Besides supporting a number of initiatives around the world, the Foundation has founded the Wealth Inequality Initiative in 2021. Its goal is to shed light on and drive action against the global disparities existing in wealth and social capital by connecting global independent experts with role models, grant makers and the public.
A project example is FUNDES which aims to economically and socially integrate the waste pickers of Cartagena by establishing a collaborative ecosystem with all the stakeholders in the city’s informal recycling supply chain.
Another project is the South African Christel House that focuses on addressing education inequality. The program provides children in the most marginalised communities of Cape Town with free scholarships, a tailored education, and access to the more privileged strata of South African society. The project uniquely brings together privileged and disadvantaged students to create long-lasting relations across the wealth divide, improving economic connectedness and mutual respect in South Africa.