It is not possible to fully understand the Golinelli Foundation if you do not know some fundamental traits of its founder, Marino Golinelli, born in Modena in 1920.
Marino Golinelli is an entrepreneur first and foremost; is perhaps today one of the last representatives of a by now historic class of men and women who in the Italian post-war period were able to rebuild our country, and whose entrepreneurial and human trajectory has become paradigmatically, and together with many others, a supporting lintel of the evolution and future of our society up to today's hints and changes.
Everything was needed in post-war Italy: education was needed, a large part of the illiterate rural population needed to learn to read and write and so Adriano Olivetti's portable machines first invaded the country and then the world in the 50s . Having learned to read and write, every "good student" cannot ignore the "do arithmetic", and therefore here are the calculators by Olivetti, always aiming at every modern desk between the 60s and 70s.
We needed energy, steel, means of locomotion, tyres, food products and then we witnessed the work, for example, of Mattei, Falck, Marcegaglia, Agnelli, Pirelli, Barilla and all those generations of Italians who looked to the future with trust.
Medicines were obviously needed: in this case Italian ingenuity was condensed into various families including, for example, the Recordatis (a company founded in 1926), the Angelinis (beginning in 1919), the Menarinis (beginning as early as 1886), the Bracco (company founded in 1927), the Chiesis (1935) and the Zambons (company founded in 1906).
On 24 January 1948 it was the turn of Marino Golinelli, founder and first employee of Alfa Biochimici. In those days the Italian constitution came into force on 1 January 1948, and on 11 May 1948 Luigi Einaudi was elected second President of the Italian Republic.
Almost seventy years have passed since then, on 14 May 2015, Alfasigma was born, operating in 18 countries, with around 2.800 employees. This is a success story that will go on, but the narrative that interests us in this case is that of the Golinelli Foundation, which branches out from an entrepreneur but who is also a citizen with values and a man of culture.
Marino Golinelli, for social and civil responsibility, decides at a certain point in his career to redistribute part of the fortune he had as an entrepreneur to society. This decision is accompanied by a vision: education and culture, through cohesion and innovation, are the basis of the sustainable development of society.
"Giving back to society" for Golinelli therefore had the meaning of "investing" his personal resources for our country. He then chose to "give back" by pre-distributing, believing it is even more effective than re-distributing. By this we mean that the creation of the Foundation, which bears his name, still operating in the sector of education, training and culture, had as its main objective that of transmitting a know-how to young people because this is a profit that is generated for the community.
Investing in innovative educational programs aimed at young and very young people, when their learning capacity is maximum, means immediately teaching people to use their intellectual faculties when they are most receptive to teaching. Such an action, if systemic, could shift the economic center of gravity from the classic "health-care" welfare, which costs more and is less effective, to a dynamic "preventive" welfare and more oriented towards "development". A Welfare in which education and culture become integral and main parts of the system.
Another element that characterizes Marino Golinelli's personality is passion: he has decided to «do it himself», «to put his face into it» and has created the “Marino Golinelli” Foundation, which was born 27 years ago, on the occasion of the °IX centenary of the Alma Mater in 1988.
Without fear of denial by its Founder, the Golinelli Foundation – since 2014 there is no longer «Marino» in the name due to the desire to «place it in the community» – is the only private Italian philanthropic foundation on the model of the large US foundations and Anglo-Saxons; is a strategic, operational foundation, endowed with assets, with governance independent and autonomous, with a general manager and an operational structure of over 40 permanent collaborators (more than 120 collaborations in one year).
Unique, "fortunately for the country", does not mean alone: the Italian panorama records the presence of 6.620 active foundations (2011 data). Of these, 1.700 are foundations operating in the “education and research” sector and “spend” a total of 1,25 billion euros a year in this sector. The 1.500 foundations that operate in the “culture, sport and recreation” sector spend 970 million euros a year.
Let us consider for a moment that in Italy the total investment in education (2011 figure) is equal to 4,1% of the GDP, i.e. approximately 66 billion euros and that in culture, equal to 0,5% of the GDP, is approximately 8 billion euros.
It should also be remembered that the MIUR budget for the current year is around 52 billion euros, 49 of which are needed for teachers' salaries and infrastructure maintenance.
Finally, it should be noted that in 2005 the total assets managed by the foundations amounted to 85 billion euros, of which 45 billion from the 88 banking foundations (now down to around 42 billion euros).
Then it is possible to understand that "the foundation movement" in Italy, albeit still pulverized and fragmented, potentially constitutes a mine of fresh "and more renewable" energies than others, economic resources but also values, ethics, interwoven with history, skills and abilities , and that well conveyed can truly become a strategic resource for the country.
Foundations are not only a heritage destined for a purpose, they are above all a platform in which it is possible to make a pact between generations, a sort of hinge in history, also to hand down narratives, visions, values, experiences, in short, a cultural capital stratified in decades that should be adequately treasured and which is symbolically linked to the big names mentioned above which, in the end, make up a large part of Italy's great reputational treasure commonly known throughout the world as "Made in Italy".
Why then can the Golinelli Foundation be said to be unique? For the setting, for the objectives, for the multiannual operational programs and for the concrete multi-articulated approach. The foundation - unlike others even more important and/or large in terms of organizations or assets - has decided, in relation to welfare, to no longer place itself in a logic of subsidiarity, but today has the ambition to be highly innovative and to help trace new original paths for the development of our society in the areas covered by its intervention, in order to be able to face the changing world more confidently.
If we reflect on the future that awaits our country, we can consider that: in 2065 in Italy there were an estimated 61,3 million inhabitants, of whom 65 out of 1 were over 3, and 1 out of 2 of working age, with 14,1 million foreign residents . In the world then, in 2040, there will be 9 billion inhabitants, and 7,5 billion by 2100. The concentration of wealth in Italy is already very high today (Gini coefficient at 64% given in 2012).
The question is: can and does Italy want to be a protagonist in the future of the global world? The answer of the Golinelli Foundation is yes, and for this reason it acts for young people, to give them today what they will need and indispensable in the society of 2065.
The Golinelli Foundation is aimed at all ages, from 0 to 100 years, with a multidisciplinary, holistic approach, which connects the scientific and humanistic and artistic disciplines, which combines "knowledge and know-how", developing programs and activities for students, teachers, families, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, administrators, researchers, thinkers, and operating in a network with over 100 local, national and international partners (CERN, CNR, INFN, INAF, ESA, MIUR, MIBAC, Regions, Municipalities, etc. .).
There are currently six main multiannual programmes: School of ideas, to guide and stimulate creativity from an early age. It promotes art and science with workshops and cultural projects for children and teenagers (8 months>13 years). 30.000 visitors last year, more than 100.000 from 2010 to today. In 2012 it was nominated among the top 10 European children centres. Science in Practice, to stimulate passion and teach the experimental work method to teenagers (11 – 18 years). 13.000 visitors in the last year, more than 130.000 since 2000. A large experimental scientific laboratory to ignite a passion for science and technology in adolescents, inspired by the "Dolan DNA learning center" in New York. Business Garden, which aims to develop skills and abilities, to stimulate ideas and support concrete experiments in entrepreneurship accelerators. Managed by the EUREKA Trust which is a transparent and dedicated tool, it has already involved 150 boys and girls in the two-year period 2014/2015.
Educate to educate is the update, support and merit award program for teachers of every school of every level. It is a multi-year project based on multidisciplinarity, new teaching technologies, hands-on approach, laboratories, science and society. In the two-year period 2014/15, over 357 hours of training for 972 teachers in 422 schools, with an impact on 48.600 students in two years. In collaboration with MIUR and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Science in the square, which brings science and culture to citizens and families in squares and streets. Aimed at citizens of all ages, 45.000 visitors in the last 2014 edition, more than 500.000 from 2005 to today, it is a cultural event that brings workshops, meetings, conferences and exhibitions to urban areas, transforming them into temporary science centres.
Art, science and knowledge is the program that aims to stimulate critical thinking by addressing all generations, students and adults. Divided into art and science exhibitions, meetings and conferences that offer a holistic approach to culture. Over 100.000 visitors (50% students) to the exhibitions since 2010 (Anthroposphere 2010, Happy Tech 2011, Da Zero a Cento 2012, Petrol 2013, GOLA 2014, Degrees of freedom 2015).
In general, the goal of the Golinelli Foundation is to educate to knowledge, equipping young people and everyone with a "new toolbox" - made up of creativity, passion, curiosity, imagination, knowing how to learn, trust, ethics, social responsibility and civil society, multi-cultural approach, critical thinking, knowing how to experiment and know how to make mistakes, etc. – so that a new generation of human beings is able to manage the complexity of the global world and the increasingly unpredictable future, and that this happens while remaining free to choose their own "free" aspirations.
For years, the Golinelli Foundation has been pursuing a message that can be summarized in "Culture feeds the Planet": with this approach, the Opificio Golinelli will be inaugurated on 3 October, the 9.000 m100 center for knowledge and culture which will be built in Bologna as metaphor of a city and for which 150.000-1 visits per year (2000 million from XNUMX to today) of children, families, students, teachers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs are expected.
The Golinelli factory will be an accelerator towards the society of 2065, therefore not a point of arrival for the Foundation, but rather a new starting point desired by its Founder; it will be a place of "learning by doing", with an eye to the future, to the unknown, but with the millenary baggage of our history and culture, to support the necessary metamorphosis of an idea of development of our society "beyond" the concept itself of sustainability; in fact, the Foundation wants to help young people both in terms of employment and work and in terms of the maturation of principles such as freedom, democracy, happiness, all elements necessary to imagine a future sustainable world today, albeit more complicated and unpredictable of the past (ref:fondazionegolinelli.it).
