The Schöpflin Foundation is represented by our Executive Director Tim Göbel and the Chairman of the Advisory Board Hans Schöpflin. In pursuing the foundation's purpose, the Executive Board is advised and supported by the Schöpflin Foundation's Advisory Board.
The Schöpflin Foundation was established in 2001 by Hans Schöpflin and his siblings Albert Schöpflin and Heidi Junghanss. Hans Schöpflin, who worked in the USA for 40 years as a highly successful entrepreneur, has been Chairman of the Foundation's Executive Board since the beginning. Today, he is supported in his work by Tim Göbel, the Foundation’s Executive Director.
Hans Schöpflin is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was born in 1941 into a Lörrach family of entrepreneurs that wrote economic history in 20th century Germany with their mail-order business founded in 1907 in Haagen. In the 1970s Hans Schöpflin moved to the United States, where he began a successful career in business alongside entrepreneur Sol Price before starting his own business as a venture investor in the early 1980s. His mentor Sol Price always combined economic success with social responsibility, an approach that greatly influenced Hans Schöpflin. Yet his path from entrepreneur to philanthropist had its deepest roots in a personal tragedy: In 1995, Hans Schöpflin's son died of a drug overdose. In the years that followed, Hans Schöpflin intensified his philanthropic commitment. This resulted in the creation of the Panta Rhea Foundation in the USA in 1998 and the Schöpflin Foundation in Lörrach in 2001, as well as the Spore Initiative in 2020. Today, he continues to work as an entrepreneur and investor. At the core of his philanthropic commitment lies the strengthening of democracy and the concern for future generations. For his efforts in the field of philanthropy, Hans Schöpflin was awarded the German Donors’ Award (“Deutscher Stifterpreis”) 2020.
Tim Göbel became Executive Director of the Schöpflin Foundation in 2016. He studied economics and was then a founder member of the team that set up the private Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, serving as its Vice President from 2008 through 2016. Tim Göbel is a member of the supervisory board at Finanzwende e. V. and a member of the advisory board at ProjectTogether.
The Schöpflin Foundation supports people and organizations that advocate for a more just and sustainable world and experiment with new ideas to find solutions to the major social challenges of our time. The goal of our philanthropic engagement is to secure a better future for the young and future generations.
In an in-depth interview published in 2019 in Stiftungswelt, the magazine of the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (Association of German Foundations), Hans Schöpflin and Tim Göbel explain the role that strengthening a vibrant democracy in particular plays for our Board and for us as a foundation.
The Schöpflin Foundation’s Advisory Board advises, supports and monitors the Executive Board as it pursues the Foundation’s stated mission. The Advisory Board is made up of representatives from the Foundation’s founding family together with external personalities who contribute their expertise for the benefit of the Foundation. From 2021, one position on the Advisory Board will always be held by a representative from the group of current or former Schöpflin Foundation grantees.
By including a representative from the group of current or former Schöpflin Foundation grantees on the Advisory Board, the Foundation is following the so-called “participatory giving" model, which means grant recipients (grantees) have a stronger involvement in the entire funding process as well as in the actual funding decisions. The aim is to do away with the traditional power structures and achieve more equality between foundations and grantees.
The person appointed to this role is not of course involved in any decisions relevant to any funding of their own organization. He or she also identifies any potential conflicts of interest in relation to all funding decisions to be made and works with the other members of the Advisory Board to mitigate any such conflicts. Currently, Laura-Kristine Krause, founding President of More in Common Germany, holds this position. In accordance with the Foundation’s statutes, all new advisory board members hold the post for an initial period of 3 years.
