SNF Commemorates 25 Years of Grantmaking - Stavros Niarchos Foundation

This year marks a quarter-century since the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) began making grants to nonprofit organizations around the world, guided by an openness to the excellent ideas of people close to the issues, by collaboration with valued partners, and by a desire to create transformative change whose benefits multiply and are shared widely across society.

Over the course of its history, SNF has committed over $3.1 billion through more than 5,000 grants to nonprofit organizations in over 135 countries around the world. The Foundation’s mission is broad by design, and the core of SNF’s grantmaking is its online application, open 24/7 to any nonprofit interested in applying. This accessible approach, paired with a belief in the power of public-private partnership, has helped SNF reach widely and deeply across its program areas of Arts & Culture, Education, Health & Sports, and Social Welfare. A 25-minute documentary sharing highlights from 25 years of SNF partnerships and impact premiered today for a live audience at SNF Nostos in Athens

“Since SNF’s first grant in 1996, made possible thanks to the endowment provided by our founder, my great uncle, the late Stavros Niarchos, our work has been strengthened by the varying perspectives, expertise, and backgrounds of our incredible grantee partners,” said SNF Co-President Andreas C. Dracopoulos. “They have joined us in believing that a different reality is possible and in envisioning a future characterized, simply put, by greater humanity. This milestone belongs to all of us together, and we are honored to be able to celebrate it the same way—together—at our SNF Nostos 2021.”

The Foundation’s open, people-centric approach animates its annual celebration of summer, SNF Nostos, taking place this year from August 25-29 at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens, which was built through SNF’s largest single grant to date and donated to the people of Greece. Boundary-pushing artists, kinetic musical performances, iconoclastic thinkers, wholesome family fun, and lively conversation come together through events from the SNF Nostos Conference on Humanity and Artificial Intelligence, to SNF DIALOGUES, to the SNF Nostos Run and beyond. The celebration—the largest of its kind in Greece—is always free and open to the public.

Explore key goals in empowering humanity that have guided 25 years of partnerships and support.