Values and Trust

In the world of citizen initiatives and the charities meant to fund them, two things are truly surprising:

1. The scarcity and weakness of the funding actually implemented.
2. The very large amounts that are available and therefore underutilized.

It is not the will to bring these two worlds together that is lacking, but it must be acknowledged that they are indeed two worlds with such different rules and rituals that meeting and even only understanding is difficult: interactions and communication become so laborious that they turn into a dialogue of the deaf. On the side of the funders, many of the collaborators, often coming from the banking world, do not necessarily understand the concerns and the needs of citizen initiatives, and the latter do not necessarily find all the required presentation forms, which resemble a business plan, to be relevant in their domain of activity.

To set the framework, let us recall that the sums available to fund charities and projects are extremely significant, and so are the needs claimed by project leaders. It is not surprising then that disappointment, at the time of the annual review, is painful on both sides: for those who want to give and claim they cannot find "quality projects" to donate to, and for those convinced of the validity of their initiative, disappointed "not to have been understood" and, as a result, not having been helped.

This is why our working group has taken charge of this situation to bring about change. We have chosen a bridge as our symbol. Indeed, the goal is to build a bridge between two shores: that of interesting projects and that of potential funders willing to support initiatives that align with their desired philosophy of action.

And the traffic on this bridge is not only the "requests from project leaders" and their "reporting" at the conclusion of the exercise. It also involves promoting mutual understanding, spreading information about projects and their funders to a broader audience.

Other users of this bridge are those who provide assistance and project evaluation services, information elements, or even training on the two shores that this bridge connects. The goal is to smooth the interaction between potential funders and project leaders. The operational objective is to help and "make things possible" in a simple, effective, and user-friendly way.

The Geneva Foundation for the Future aims to develop the working tools, the training about how to use them and operate as a facilitator to streamline interactions, help smooth out difficulties, while ensuring the regularity and seriousness of deliverables.

After 30 years spent developing techniques for evaluating project proposals and supporting projects toward their economic viability, it was decided to model the skills and methodologies to provide the community with a set of toolboxes usable daily in both small and large organizations in finance and sustainable development.

The following are behind the project of the Geneva Foundation for the Future, in alphabetical order:

Alejandro JARA WEITZMANN

Economist and Entrepreneur, CEO and Co-Founder of Smart Republic and member of the board of Smart Campus, an Edtech and Sustainable Impact platform.

Master of Philosophy and Doctorate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE; Visiting Fellow at the LSE Government Department; Bachelor of Arts at the Catholic University of Chile.

Former Director of Strategy and Impact at CODELCO, the world’s largest copper corporation; and former international advisor to the Ministry of the Presidency of Chile.
Codelco delegate to the United Nations Global Compact.
Founding team member of Rassembleur d’Énergies, ENGIE’s Green Fund.
Former Latam Advisor for the World Bank, and other UN agencies.
E2E Ambassador, Investors Network, UK (currently).

Christa MUTH

Dr. Prof. HES, Systems Specialist, Emeritus Professor at HES-SO, member of the Executive Committee of the NGO Objectif Sciences International.

Over almost 20 years of consulting activity, she has collaborated with public organizations and companies of all sizes, often within high-risk, even critical, mandates for the survival of client organizations. In most of her mandates, she prioritized non-tangible factors—people and organizational culture—rather than the more visible, tangible factors. The results often proved her right. She developed her original approach thanks to her academic journey, during which she had the chance to meet exceptional intellectuals who marked their time and her mind, such as Edgar Morin, Paolo Freire, Paul Watzlawick, Henri Laborit, and Jean Ziegler.

This approach, strengthened by her field experience in strategy and organizational development, converged in the postgraduate program she designed, the Master of Advanced Studies in Human Systems Engineering, as well as in the research and development projects she directed or inspired.

Currently, her main themes are diversity, strategy, complexity, innovation, and social entrepreneurship, which she converges in the following formula:

Innovation = Sourcing from Diversity + Surfing on Complexity

She addresses this field in her publications, consulting mandates, international conferences, and participation in civil society committees.

Working languages: French, German, English, Italian.

Michèle WACHS

Alongside a very active community life in the field of youth education, the defence of human rights and respect for the individual (Amnesty International representative at the UN from 1985 to 1990, Michèle created and then managed Les Rencontres de l’Excellence, a programme run by the NGO OSI until December 2021.

She has been a mediator since 1990, a trainer (mediation, stress and conflict management, communication, corporate behaviour in customer service and CRM) and a change coach for 15 years. Before that, she worked as a doctor’s assistant, then as a manager and organiser of group events for Amnesty International (Switzerland). Today, she passes on her know-how in the field of education and training. She is also involved in a number of activities to help people through the transition phases of life, whether happy or sad (master of ceremonies, end-of-life support, coaching).

She brings her skills to bear in monitoring the personal development of those behind impact projects, both in terms of people and team management, and in terms of business development and mediation of complex projects.

Thomas EGLI

Founder of the NGO Objectif Sciences International (Special Consultative Status with the United Nations, ECOSOC), which has been conducting impact projects in science education through practice and citizen science since 1992 on all continents.

He invented and created the first Participatory Research actions in 1992.

His specialties range from economic viability and monitoring/assessment of impact projects (over several million euros in sales per project) to managing breakthrough technologies (schematic innovation and business development).

Thomas has been the Executive Director (CEO) of the GENEVA FORUM since 2001, organizing the Annual International Conferences on key topics such as "Rights of Nature", "Sustainable Tourism and Responsible Travel", "Inclusive Education through Project-Based Learning", "Responsible Finance", and "Citizen Science and Participatory Research", to allow all actors and operators in these fields to exchange, meet, and share at the widest international level.

His first published works date back to 2001.

He is the author of "The Ideas of Life" (Biomimicry of organizations applied to businesses) and "The Thought of the World" (Epistemology), published in 2001. Specialized in systems thinking since 2001 and in Technology Management since 2007, he is a consultant in Management, Bio-inspired Organization, Business Management, NGO Development, Excellence Techniques, and Breakthrough Technology Management.