Term
Sponsor
EXPLANATION
Any person or organization that provides funding to others for a project or activity. These can be, for example, grant giving foundations but also private donors.
Donational (form of impact)
A foundation or organization does not realize its own projects to implement its foundation purpose, but supports the work of third parties with financial contributions. Such foundations are also called «grant giving foundations».
Mixed (form of impact)
A foundation or organization acts both operative and donational.
Grant request
A complete grant application (by letter or online). Common synonym: application.
NKS
The NonproCons System of Categorisation for Classical Foundations (NKS) is a system of categorisation developed by the company NonproCons AG. The system contains six categories: organization, topics, groups of beneficiaries (target groups), area of impact, form of impact, and funding.
Operative (form of impact)
A foundation or organization implements projects or pursues activities in its own name and for its own account. They implement the (foundation’s) purpose with their own measures.
Organizational portrait
A short presentation of the organization (online) with the most important information. On stiftungschweiz.ch there are organizational portraits for grant giving foundations and organizational portraits for project owners.
Philanthropy
Philanthropy includes any private voluntary act for a charitable purpose. This can be done by awarding financial resources to third parties, but also includes, for example, volunteer work.
Project portrait
A short summary (1 page) with the most important information about a project.
Project owners
Organizations or people who (want to) implement a project. Often, project owners look externally for funding to implement their project.
Research folder
A function of the foundation research. Researched foundations can be filed and saved in the research folder.
Self-assessment
Questionnaire for self-assessment (e.g., whether the selected foundation is suitable for funding the project).
SOGC
Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, service of the SECO. It is still the only official publication of the Swiss Confederation, appearing five times a week with the latest official information and legally required announcements. (Seco, 2019)
Donor
Private individual who voluntarily donates money free of charge for the benefit of third parties (e.g. organizations).
Foundation
A foundation is a legal entity in its own right and represents an independent asset provided by a founder for a specific permanent purpose (cf. Kendris 2016). In most cases, the foundation operates on a nonprofit basis (see foundation purpose) and is therefore tax exempt. Foundations can be donational, operativeor mixed (see form of impact).
Foundation purpose
Defines the tasks and objectives of the foundation and describes its nonprofit status. This includes, for example, the funding areas (topic).
Topic
Describes the thematic focus of the foundation, organization or project. According to the NKS , there are eleven categories, e.g. Art and Culture, Social affairs, etc.
Preliminary grant request
Serves as a preliminary clarification and is not a complete application. However, it is possible that certain grant giving foundations already recognize the preliminary grant request as a complete grant request.
Form of impact
Defines the way in which an organization or foundation wants to achieve its foundation purpose. A distinction is made between donational, operative or mixed.
Area of impact
Includes the geographic scope of a foundation, organization or project.
Target group / Group of beneficiaries
Groups or individuals targeted by the activities of a project, the purpose of the foundation and with whom the impact is to be achieved. There are also non-human target groups such as animals and organizations or companies.