8/26 Open East / Double Giving / Tied Up Billions

Hello! You are reading Das Neue Geben with currently 7,141 others. 📖 This edition from Monday, August 31, 2026 has 2,200 words, reading time approx. 9 minutes

Dear Readers,

what a summer is coming to an end! In September, long shadows are already falling. The elections in East Germany cast theirs ahead, I take them as an occasion for my essay and a list of organizations that impress me with their commitment to an open society.

But long-sown fruit is also finally ripening. A year ago, I suggested a Forum Neues Geben for philanthropists and politics here, on September 8th it will take place. We want to make recommendations to double giving, I will report back. Afterwards, we will go to the federal president's new official residence and in the evening to a private dinner for people who want to commit more financially to democracy. If you would like to do that and be there: I have five tickets for readers of this newsletter.

Warmly, Felix

P.S.: Unfortunately, the federal government has sent social innovations and impact into an early and untimely winter sleep. In their new startup strategy they no longer play a role, but SEND has already commented well on this.

✍️ ESSAY: The East is Open

Image: Selfie in Brandenburg, August 2026

Due to my job, I get many ideas sent to me. A monument for world peace. Concepts for development in the Global South. Most of it, however, is local. And it comes from the West.

In the East, the landscape is different. The awareness of what matters in democracy is not. Two of the strongest democracy songs I know come from East Germans. The first is by André Herzberg, in “Kiefernlied” he sings of the trees on barren sand. They need few nutrients and hold the soil with their roots. You can read that as botany. Or as a description of East German civil society.

The ground is indeed barren. For every 100,000 inhabitants, there are 33 foundations in the West, but only 14 in the East, almost all of them small. Large private donations are rare; the state is almost the only financier. This is also why the restructuring of the federal program "Demokratie leben!" feels like a clearance in many places.

But finally, donor interest is growing. Ahead of the state elections on September 6th and 20th, questions about organizations worth supporting are piling up in my environment. Several funds of private donors and foundations are active or just launching. Below, I have put together a list of funds and organizations that impress me.

However, East Germans expect even more from the state than West Germans, including that it balances income and wealth (ESS, Destatis). This often results in a reflex against private giving: wealth should rather be siphoned off as taxes and publicly distributed. I can understand this perspective. But the wish currently fails at both ends. Out of 60 inheritance tax exemptions for large fortunes, not a single one went to East Germany. And with a governing AfD, state funding becomes a power instrument of exclusion.

This makes it all the more important HOW giving is done. There is still the patronizing funding from the West and the warning panel discussion in the Elbphilharmonie. But many new programs are built participatively: with Zukunftswege Ost, a majority East German jury decides; with the Flow Fund, young East Germans themselves distribute 25,000 euros each to initiatives of their choice. The money may come from the West, the decision is made in the East.

Now it counts. If you want to give and don't know where, I suggest three principles.

First: Organizations instead of projects. Fund without strings attached, where possible over several years. If you trust the local people to defend democracy, you can also trust them to manage their budget.

Second: Rely on recommendations, donate on multiple shoulders. The same euro can achieve a hundred times more in the right place than elsewhere. Therefore, it is best to give together with others who have selected well and built partnerships.

Third: Portfolios instead of individual donations. To spread the risk on the stock market, ETFs were created. To achieve a broad impact when donating, there are now portfolios and donation funds.

These three principles still go against the popular practice of directly choosing a project and supporting it once. While that is better than giving nothing, it is like drowning a tree in the forest with water once a year. And telling no one about it.

Smart donations trust, are networked, and audible (visible, but I cannot resist alliterations 😉). They create an ecosystem. I hope to provide a small watering guide with my recommendation list “Offener Osten”. I also shared this on Friday in the Handelsblatt (”Die klügste Investition in Ostdeutschland ist eine Spende”), with the comment: “There is no shortage of dramatizations and appeals surrounding the three East German state elections in September. Mostly it is about explanations out of deficits. And about warnings, too often from people from West Germany. The last thing engaged people in East Germany need is know-it-all attitude.”

And that brings to mind the second democracy song: “Alle oder keiner”, by Gerhard Gundermann (music stolen from Neil Young's “Rockin’ in the Free World”, also fits, especially from Pearl Jam). Both songs once stood side by side, by the way, in 1992, against xenophobia under the title "Gewalt ohne mich". I hear many voices saying things have never been this bad with democracy.

I see the forest for the trees.

bcause for organizations

bcause enables non-profit organizations to collect donations digitally, manage them centrally, access them flexibly – and earn interest until then.

bcause and the German Fundraising Association are building up the Neuland Club - a curated circle for innovative employees of non-profit organizations and fundraising consultants.

It is about topics such as major donor fundraising, inheritances or cooperation with foundations and public funders. It is about challenges, failures and learning experiences in fundraising. (And also about the free donation infrastructure tools from bcause.)

Who knows people who initiate internal changes, advance new approaches and have the energy to help shape the sector?

Submit the nomination via our website by September 15th, 2026: https://web.bcause.com/neuland

Or for specific questions about using bcause, simply book an online appointment with my colleagues Nicole and Simone .

More information

A number that stays in mind: 516 billion

Image: My homemade Camera Obscura in action, August 2026

A very large, far away object of which I only see a tiny slice? No, I am not talking about the solar eclipse. But about the 516 billion euros in assets in European foundations, of which, according to a very clever article by Melina Sanchez in Alliance Magazine (on whose board I sat for a long time), just one percent is invested in a way that relates to the foundation's purpose. The rest is invested conventionally.

If only ten percent of German foundation assets were shifted into impact investments, that would double the entire German market (today about 9 billion euros). Melina describes exactly why this wealth is tied up (Der gefesselte Wohlstand). Since the 2023 reform, foundations are allowed to invest purpose-related, but non-profit law lacks a Business Judgment Rule that protects foundations from losing their non-profit status if an investment goes to zero. And unlike in the US with their Program Related Investments, German foundations are not allowed to put operational funds into purpose-related enterprises. (Perhaps we can change that with the Forum Neues Geben.)

Melina quotes bcause because we hold 60 percent of our own foundation assets in impact investments (Anyone wishing to learn how that works can find our Impact-Webinar here). The scene is moving. The Allianz Foundation has committed to 20 percent by 2035, the Joachim Herz Foundation very offensively announced its 20 million investment in a deep-tech fund (not impact, but at least venture capital).

I can only agree with Melina: “Every foundation board should put a mission-investing goal on the agenda, and every asset manager should explain why impact venture capital is not in the portfolio. Anyone who asks this question once in a board meeting will notice how quickly the darkness clears.”

Club Neues Geben

A few months ago I was invited to join P150 , the network of globally leading philanthropy advisors (limited to 150 members until recently). Since then, I have been constantly learning from other people who influence large sums.

Meanwhile, multi-million funding initiatives are also taking place internationally, privately and directly, without full-time foundation staff. Where advisors used to only develop a concept, they now become those who also handle the allocation of funds and the relationship with the recipients. And bring other donors on board to participate.

We also mirror this at bcause: In addition to the partnerships in the Club Neues Geben with philanthropy advisors like Andreas Rickert, Andreas Schiemenz, Paul Ziesche and others, we are building a tool with which they can not only advise, but also directly manage the money of their clients at a glance. Get in touch if interested!

With Paul Ziesche and Luke Kinkaid, I wrote an article “From Intention to Giving” in my English Substack, describing the barriers that advisors can help overcome on the way to more giving.

More about Club Neues Geben

An idea for further thought: My Open East List

Image: Optimistic spirit on the Spree, in August 2026

I regularly create lists of organizations that particularly impress me - and support them with my (very modest) fees and (increasingly) donations from third parties via my small FOFoundation, which I forward entirely.

I have never had as much input as on the topic of East Germany. That is why the list has grown a bit longer.

From cooperative to participatory: Donation Funds

• Sachsen-Anhalt Fund (Kinnings Foundation and Schöpflin Foundation): This “Flow Fund” was founded by three young changemakers. So far, over €100,000 has been participatively distributed by young local volunteers themselves.

• Zukunftswege Ost (Stiftung Bürger für Bürger, Halle): Joint initiative of many foundations with micro-funding and youth funds

• Block Up (Wir für Demokratie): €500 seed capital for initiatives of young people from the working class and first-generation academics, predominantly in the East German federal states.

• Spendenfonds Starke Demokratie: Selected organizations with the “Wirkt!” seal of quality from PHINEO for proven impact in various subject areas.

• Deutscher Fonds für Demokratie: Independent donation pool for emergency aid, stabilization and development of democracy initiatives and spaces, initiated from the Campact network.

Youth and Education

• Sindbad Görlitz brings young people together with dedicated mentors who listen to them and encourage them.

• The initiative Studienstiftung des Ostens closes a funding gap and builds a scholarship program for young talents from East Germany.

• The Kinnings Academy is the leadership program for young changemakers in East Germany. https://www.kinnings-academy.org/

• The Changemaker Academy from Ketzin shows young people what they can achieve socially before or beyond voting.

Local Alliances

• The Aufwind-Festival is a unique inspiration and networking event in November 2026. For all who do rather than talk.

• Young Town Hall (Kulturallianz Gartz, Lokalschmiede) is what Mayor Luca Piwodda called the project to consistently open up the town hall for the participation of young people.

• The Network Lebendige Dörfer (Dorfbewegung Brandenburg) ensures exchange between rural concerns and politics, among other things with a “Parliament of Villages”.

Public Sphere and Victim Support

• The Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte sues for compliance with fundamental rights.

• Fokus Thüringen is an independent media project with features, reports, analyses and podcasts, developed by local journalists

• BAG Ausstieg zum Einstieg supports with exit and distancing counseling in the context of right-wing extremism

• Ex Ante advises judiciary and administration on constitutional resilience in the event that authoritarian-populist actors obtain state power instruments

• Miteinander eV from Magdeburg advises victims of right-wing extremism, provides analyses and supports the administration in dealing with new majorities.

• LAMSA ev: The State Network for Migrant Organizations in Saxony-Anhalt represents the political, economic, social and cultural interests of people with a migration background.

A person who occupies my mind: Klaus-Michael Kühne

Image: The entrepreneur and patron, Klaus-Michael Kühne 1937-2026

Klaus-Michael Kühne passed away on August 24th. His death is a major, but not entirely simple event for philanthropy. Depending on the estimate, 23 to 40 billion euros will go to the non-profit Kühne Foundation in Switzerland, making it immediately one of the largest in the world. It controls 60 percent of Kühne+Nagel, holds shares in Hapag-Lloyd, Lufthansa and many others.

Kühne and his foundation have already used hundreds of millions for science, medicine and culture during his lifetime. These are donations that are second to none. For the Kühne Logistics University, the new Hamburg Opera.

But part of the picture is also: the family fortune benefited during the Nazi era, unresolved. And it is now neither distributed to society via taxes (his place of residence, Canton Schwyz, does not levy inheritance tax) nor otherwise.

So far, the Kühne Foundation is more of a foundation conglomerate than a funding institution. In 2026, it spent 65 million CHF, which, measured against future wealth, is about 0.2 percent, and not to third parties, but for employees and subsidiaries.

Kühne personally donated more than most ultra-high-net-worth individuals. At the same time, he put his wealth into iron chains. On LinkedIn, I argued that with this ambivalence, he stands for his era.

💡 MORE FROM FELIX

• Article “Private Banking kennt jeder. Jetzt kommt Private Giving.” with Dr. Andreas Rickert in Stiftung&Sponsoring 4/26

• Handelsblatt columns on sustainable banking (August 14th) and donating in East Germany (August 28th)

• Substack article “From Intention to Giving. Why the Wealthy Give Less Than They Want To” with Luke Kinkaid and Paul Ziesche, July 2026

• New Philanthropy Podcast “Zwei Perspektiven, Ein Ziel” with Andreas Schiemenz, July 2026

📅 Upcoming Appearances:

Sept 8th Forum, Reception and Dinner Neues Geben, Berlin (For committed donors, five tickets are still reserved for the dinner, look forward to your email)

Sept 14th Augenhöhe Forum, Osnabrück → The inspiring story of host Karsten Wulf from founder to impact investor here on Spotify

Sept 15th The Frontier Dinner, with Renaissance Philanthropy, Zurich

Oct 12th Annual Conference Bundesverband Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften

🔍 Needs & Leads

Image: At the site of the attack on the Berlin Pride, July 2026

• It has already been four weeks since the terrible attack on the Berlin Pride (CSD). Where I usually jog, there are still flowers. Meanwhile, there is the MANEO-Opferfonds and a betterplace campaign that I would like to share.

• Last year, at the first Berliner Salon “Now is the time” in the French Cathedral at Gendarmenmarkt, I discussed with a hundred committed people at twenty tables. On September 30th there is finally the continuation, apply here.

• After I recently wrote about tax advisors, Teresa Conrad shared a wonderful idea with me: a new tax form that describes the social impact of taxes. And she has now supplemented it with my idea of a voluntary additional contribution, where you can help decide what happens with the money.

• For spontaneous deciders: Finally, there is an impact investing conference in Berlin: Impact wird Mainstream with PHINEO among others on Sept 10th in Berlin

• The CSP offers with the Nextgen Impact Investing Program currently the leading further training for wealth owners from all over the world who want to deal with the impact of their capital. A whole range of members in the Club Neues Geben have already benefited from this.

Feel free to write to me with your Needs and Leads.

Felix Oldenburg is an initiator in the field of social entrepreneurship and foundations. 🔗 Order the book "Der gefesselte Wohlstand" here 🎧 Or as an audiobook while jogging, cooking, driving... 📱 On Instagram and LinkedIn for daily thoughts and discussion impulses.

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Felix Oldenburg CEO bcause · Board member gut.org · Author "Der gefesselte Wohlstand"