Japan Foundation\u00a0Center<\/a>, Foundations in the Country are\u00a0around 9,000, including\u00a0operational\u00a0and grant-making\u00a0Foundations.\u00a0These one\u00a0are around 2,000.<\/p>\nIn this scenario,\u00a0with an\u00a0endowment\u00a0of\u00a0\u20ac\u00a02,4 billions\u00a0and \u20ac\u00a0270 millions\u00a0of annual program budget,\u00a0the Nippon Foundation is the biggest\u00a0among the\u00a0Japanese grant making Foundations.\u00a0This role leads\u00a0the Foundation\u00a0to\u00a0a huge\u00a0responsibility as Social\u00a0Innovator in Japan and abroad. \u00a0The Nippon Foundation was established by\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Ryoichi\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0in 1962 as the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation, to promote the reconstruction of\u00a0postwar\u00a0Japan through the development of the shipbuilding and shipping industries. Over the years, the Foundation\u2019s activities in Japan expanded to include projects that support health and hygiene,\u00a0fire fighting, disaster preparedness, food security in Africa and the elimination of leprosy.\u00a0The Nippon Foundation draws the majority of the funds needed to support its many projects from the proceeds of\u00a0Japanese motorboat racing.<\/p>\n
Mr.\u00a0Ohno,\u00a0in the creation and development of the Nippon Foundation, the figure of\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Ryoichi\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0is crucial. Which is the strategy in the setting up of the several\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Foundations existing at\u00a0the moment in the world and\u00a0which kind of relations do you have with each of them?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI can confirm that we have a strong network of more than\u00a020 affiliated organizations\u00a0and that among them\u00a0some are named \u201cSasakawa\u201d. \u00a0We decided to create\u00a0some of these\u00a0Foundations in order to promote friendships with some of the most strategic Countries for us as e.g.\u00a0France\u00a0through\u00a0the\u00a0Fondation\u00a0Franco-JaponaiseSasakawa,\u00a0United Kingdom through the Great Britain\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Foundation,\u00a0North Europe with the Scandinavia-Japan\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Foundation and United States with the\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Peace Foundation USA.\u00a0Moreover we decided to create another group of\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Foundations\u00a0focused on particular issues, so e.g. the\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Africa Association\u00a0involved in the agricultural training in Africa, the\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0memorial Health Fund that works in partnership with the World Health Organization in the elimination of leprosy and the\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Peace Foundation, a think tank to respond to increasing natural disasters and social crises. Each of these Foundations are independent but we are strictly\u00a0connected, we share values and visions and wemaintain\u00a0very friendly relations organizing\u00a0common\u00a0events\u00a0and several visits during the year.\u00a0This is also the reason why you can find in our Annual Report a geographical repartition of funds\u00a0since 1962, that underline a 24% dedicated\u00a0to Europe. Actually we don\u2019t donate now there, but each of the\u00a0Sasakawa\u00a0Foundations created in Europe was born thanks to an endowment given from us.<\/p>\n
Which is your model of intervention? Can you classify yourself as a traditional grant making foundation or do you prefer to be classified as a Venture Philanthropy Foundation? Do you give non financial support to your partners and of which kind?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWe are a\u00a0grant making foundation but\u00a0we are\u00a0in the process to transform\u00a0ourselves\u00a0in\u00a0an\u00a0organisation that not only gives moneys but also support the\u00a0recipients\u00a0with incubation, management and technical assistance more close to a venture philanthropy approach.\u00a0We also consider ourselves as a Strategic\u00a0PhilanthropyOrganization.\u00a0About our activity of granting, please note that we don\u2019t stay at the office waiting for applications but we are a very proactive donor that travels and visits several possible partners all around the world, to have a clear idea about the activities and the possible programs to support.<\/p>\n
You are working in the promotion of Social Innovation. What does it mean for you?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nSocial Innovation can be interpreted in a lot of ways,\u00a0in our case\u00a0we think that we need to introduce a new approach to face the\u00a0social issues affecting Japan and other Countries.\u00a0In\u00a0particularly we are now working to setting\u00a0up a system able to\u00a0allow us to make investments,\u00a0do loans\u00a0and\u00a0realize a first\u00a0pilot\u00a0project of\u00a0a\u00a0social impact bond.\u00a0We formed\u00a0working groups with several municipality governments\u00a0to identify \u00a0programs to cope with issues such as adoption, dementia and\u00a0youth unemployment etc. funded by our moneys and able to ask other investors for funds, in the typical mechanism of social impact bonds.\u00a0We hope to be able to realize some precedences in 2017.<\/p>\n
This is very interesting. Actually in\u00a0Europe in this moment the debate on Social Impact Investing is raising. This\u00a0sector\u00a0would be the future\u00a0also\u00a0for the Nippon Foundation?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThe Nippon Foundation\u00a0is very interested in Social Impact Investing but we are not allowed\u00a0to provide loans or\u00a0equity\u00a0to a\u00a0non-profit\u00a0organization \u00a0because\u00a0the Nippon Foundation was created by a special law and supervised by the Ministry of Transportations\u00a0and this limit us in certain things. For this reason\u00a0in 2013 we decided to create the Japan Venture Philanthropy Fund\u00a0to provide NPOs and social enterprises with mid-and long-term financial and management support to increase their social impact.\u00a0The fund raised until now\u00a0equals more than two million euros thanks to the matching gift activity realized by the Nippon Foundation that match every private donation with another donation of the same amount.\u00a0We have already started our work supporting three\u00a0non-profit organizations and one social enterprise in Japan. We also created a loan program \u00a0in Vietnam in collaboration with the Vietnam Bank for Social Policy, in order to give microfinance to people with disabilities. I am very proud of these projects!<\/p>\n
Thank you for sharing your strategies with us and I\u2019d like to ask you another final\u00a0question: which is your\u00a0opinion\u00a0about the best\u00a0way to measure social impact?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThe impact measurement is a great debate in the international arena; until now Japan\u00a0is not so advanced but we are catching up!\u00a0Under the umbrella of the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce\u00a0the Nippon Foundation\u00a0created 4 commissions, supporting every costs, in order to study some of the most priority issues. One\u00a0of this\u00a0group is\u00a0actually focused on\u00a0the study of\u00a0social impact measurement. Working very close with the\u00a0Government,\u00a0they have realized a first series of\u00a0pamphlets to explain\u00a0how to measure social impact in\u00a0strategic areas for Japan as education\u00a0and the improvement of the conditions in the rural areas,\u00a0showing how to revitalise the regions outside the big town<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From philanthropy tout-court to the integration of social investment tools. The interview to Shuichi Ohno, Executive Director of the Nippon Foundation and Japanese representative at the G7 TaskForce on Social Impact Investing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[38,32,14,29],"class_list":["post-4550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-impact-assessment","tag-impact-investing","tag-philanthropy","tag-social-investment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fondazionelangitalia.it\/ets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}