Profile

The Skat Foundation is a charitable institution for sharing and disseminating Skat’s longstanding knowledge and experience with partners in the developing world in a professional manner, and for initiating new activities to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience in development cooperation.

Vision

The vision of the Skat Foundation is a sustainable improvement of the living conditions of the disadvantaged, particularly the poor, women and children in developing countries and countries in transition.

Mission

The Skat Foundation promotes knowledge sharing, networking and mutual learning. This enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of projects and programmes and contributes to empowerment and poverty reduction.

Activities

The Skat Foundation focuses on three activities:

The Skat Foundation produces a wide range of publications such as case studies, manuals, guidelines and research reports. These are available in hardcopy or at no cost on the Skat website.
The Skat Foundation actively participates in several international knowledge sharing networks.
With innovative projects, the Skat Foundation contributes to improved knowledge sharing in development and cooperation scenarios.

Legal form

The Skat Foundation is a legally independent Swiss non-profit organisation supervised by the Swiss Federal Supervisory Board for Foundations.

Partners

The Skat Foundation works in close partnership with together organisations from the public sector, NGOs, research institutes and universities, from the developed and developing world.

The Skat Foundation in particular profits from the wealth of up-to-date knowledge of Skat that enriches the activities of the Foundation.

Funding

The Skat Foundation relies on external financial support. Projects are funded by a broad range of sponsors: bilateral and multilateral development agencies, NGOs, grantmaking foundations, and private companies.

Up to now, the following organisations and companies have supported projects of the Skat Foundation: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Development Cooperation Ministry of the Netherlands (DGIS), United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Swisscontact, Helvetas, Canton of St. Gallen, Mercator Foundation, Vontobel Foundation, Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, ABB, Swisscom.

All administrative and operating costs of the Skat Foundation are covered by Skat.

Skat Foundation's finances are audited annually by an independent accounting firm.

The Skat Foundation is not giving grants or scholarships and is not answering unsolicited proposals.

History

The Skat Foundation was founded in October 2002 by Skat and the Swiss NGOs Caritas, Helvetas and Swisscontact. For more information see also the story of Skat.