La Golinelli Foundation which is based in Bologna, was founded in 1988 by the will of its founder, the entrepreneur Marino Golinelli, born in Modena, who already in the 60s/70s believed that to build a new company it was necessary to give back to the company what it had given a decidedly Anglo-Saxon concept. A story of him, who has seen difficult moments but who, thanks to his tenacity respectful of his principles, has always found the determination to continue his project: to work for man, starting from the training of young people to build a world better, how? through that concept called “philanthropy”.
The Foundation is today the only reality in Italy that applies the American model according to a philanthropic spirit of pragmatism, concreteness and a pluralism that manifests itself through the belief that civil society, i.e. the community of citizens, is capable of organizing itself based on a common feeling. Take, for example, John Rockefeller who at the beginning of this century is an example in this regard also on a global level: his philanthropic foundation has promoted the development of agricultural skills, financed programs and institutions in developing countries, human talents and cultural values, respecting the balance between population and production on the one hand and natural resources on the other.
Going back to the Italian example of the Golinelli Foundation, today we find it engaged in multiple activities of a high human and scientific profile that intersect with each other, school, university, business, the world of work, art, science, where social responsibility has the task to bear what will become of the future of a world that we could define as "unpredictable".
A project that continues to evolve, that of Marino Golinelli, which in autumn 2015 will also see the highly anticipated opening of the Opificio Golinelli, a place, a building in the center of Bologna that will host all the activities organized up to now and many other futures.
President, how do you define yourself?
First of all a true layman, with an evolutionary vision of life and a "philanthropist".
How did the idea of the Opificio come about?
The Golinelli Foundation was born over twenty-five years ago with the aim of disseminating scientific culture, with training and teaching activities capable of stimulating the creativity of young people. Today we also have a school of entrepreneurial culture, an innovative path for the most deserving students, which promotes the most innovative start-ups of these young people, bringing them closer to doing business right from the years of their studies. This is "the garden of companies".
What does “Opificio” mean to you in today's social and economic context?
It means being coherent with the development of our initiatives, projecting them into a future, different and more complex society, coherent precisely with the unpredictability of tomorrow, so that young people can face it with confidence.
Bologna has always been considered a modern city and the Foundation with its first activities is certainly already something important that goes beyond modernity by entering a highly contemporary dimension: what would it like to ask the city for the future?
I ask Bologna for strategic availability, greater sharing and a plan that projects the Golinelli Foundation in the long term.
There are already many activities promoted by the Foundation, with great attention to teaching, to the very young and young: it is an enlightened design or a project that believes in young people to build a new future?
The Opificio has the meaning of "knowledge of culture", a place and a way where one can interact from 18 months to 20 years up to the Entrepreneurship School. I therefore believe it is necessary to know how to defend our interests but to act with the knowledge of social responsibility.
Your commitment is comparable to an enlightened patronage: how would you like to be "thought" by people?
Philanthropist. I don't find myself in the definition of patron, to which I prefer that of philanthropist, in the more open exception of the term of giving back to society what we have received from society.
What is his worldview?
History teaches that there is an "evolution" of the concept, we must therefore accept change, according to Darwin's vision of the world.
What is art for you?
It's innovating. Art serves to understand the world.
One last question: what advice would you like to give to a young person today?
To become aware of the reality in which they live and try to develop a social sense of responsibility for living and above all to be able to answer a why.
