In short — Fundraising in Switzerland works by combining three channels: public bodies, grant-making foundations and grassroots/crowdfunding, around a project that is clear, budgeted and matched to the right funders. Institutional funding is built, not simply asked for: project first, budget second, dossier third, the right funders last. Timelines are long (plan 12–18 months ahead) and grants are usually paid after the project is reported. For organisations operating nationally or internationally, the Italian-speaking region — Ticino and Italian Switzerland — has its own funders, language and rules, and that is where most national players need a local guide.
“Apply to a foundation”, “run a public call”, “try crowdfunding”: if you run or fund a cultural or social organisation in Switzerland, you have heard all of this advice. The problem is that it always arrives without the manual. This guide is the manual — how fundraising actually works for a nonprofit in Switzerland, where to start, and the steps that separate an idea from a funded project. It is written for organisations that need to raise money here without burning time on attempts that go nowhere — including national and international players who know fundraising in general, but not the specifics of the Swiss system and its Italian-speaking region.
What fundraising in Switzerland really means
Fundraising does not mean “finding someone who gives us money”. It means building a project solid and clear enough to convince the people who distribute money for a living — foundations, public bodies, institutional funders — that it is worth supporting. The difference is not stylistic, it is method. A spontaneous donation is asked for; institutional funding is constructed.
For an organisation that lives on private donations and public contributions, learning to do this in a structured way is the difference between depending on luck and having income you can plan around. It is also what makes an organisation credible to a funder: not enthusiasm, but the ability to run a project and report on it. Get that reputation right and funding compounds — each well-delivered, well-reported project makes the next one easier to finance.
The three funding sources in Switzerland
In Switzerland a cultural or social project is almost always financed by combining three different channels. One alone is rarely enough, and the real skill is in combining them: each channel reinforces your credibility with the others. A foundation, for instance, funds a project more willingly when it can see public support and a community already behind it.
| Channel | What it is | When it fits | Where to look |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public bodies | Confederation (Federal Office of Culture, Pro Helvetia), cantons, municipalities; cantonal funds partly fed by Swisslos | Projects with public or cultural value; often the credibility anchor of a budget | Cantonal cultural offices; in Ticino, the Ufficio del sostegno alla cultura |
| Grant-making foundations | Private endowments that fund others’ projects; 13,000+ public-benefit foundations in Switzerland | The core channel for independent culture and social work, if the foundation’s purpose matches yours | ASFESI (Italian-speaking Switzerland), Fundraiso, SwissFoundations |
| Grassroots & crowdfunding | Individual donations, campaigns, events | Smaller amounts, but proves community traction to institutional funders | Local crowdfunding platforms; your own community |
The lesson in the table is the last column read sideways: no single channel carries a project. The budget that gets funded is the one where public money, foundations and grassroots support each cover a slice and vouch for one another.
Public bodies. Each canton has its own rules and its own calls — and this is the first place national organisations underestimate how much the regions differ. What works in Zurich does not transfer unchanged to Bellinzona. National funders include Pro Helvetia and the Federal Office of Culture.
Grant-making foundations. They are the most important channel for independent culture and social projects, and the most misunderstood: each foundation can only support what its statutes allow. Writing to the wrong one is the fastest way to waste time — yours and theirs. SwissFoundations is the national association of grant-making foundations.
Grassroots and crowdfunding. This channel brings the least money in absolute terms, but it signals something funders weigh heavily: that the project already has people behind it.
How the system works in Italian-speaking Switzerland
Here is where national and international organisations most often need a guide. Switzerland is not one market: it is several, divided by language and by canton. The Italian-speaking region — Ticino and the Italian valleys of Graubünden — has its own funders, its own cultural codes, and a working language that a German- or French-speaking head office often cannot cover internally.
Switzerland also has one of the highest foundation densities in the world, and Ticino is among the cantons with the highest concentration. For anyone seeking funds that is good news with a catch: the supply is wide, but precisely for that reason foundations receive far more requests than they can fund. The winners are those who select well, not those who write to everyone.
Knowing who does what, in a small territory, is half the job. ASFESI is the association of grant-making foundations in Italian-speaking Switzerland; databases such as Fundraiso let you search foundations by field and region. These are valuable starting points, but the real selection happens by reading each foundation’s statutory purpose and the projects it has already funded — and, in a small region, by knowing the people. A national organisation that “parachutes” a project into Ticino without local roots is the single most common way this goes wrong: the project may be excellent, but it reads as an outsider’s, and local funders notice.
Where you actually start: project, budget, dossier, funders
The most common mistake is to start from “who do we ask for money?”. It is the right question, but the last one, not the first. The path that works — the one I follow with the organisations I work with — has four stages:
- Clarify the project. Objectives, beneficiaries, expected results. If you cannot explain it in five lines to someone who was not there, it is not ready to be funded.
- Build the budget. Realistic income and costs, with co-funding already factored in. The budget is not an attachment: it is the project translated into numbers, and it is the first thing a foundation looks at.
- Write the dossier. The document that presents the project to the funder. The form changes from body to body; the substance does not.
- Find the right funders. Ten to fifteen funders genuinely aligned with the project, not a hundred at random. A request outside a funder’s scope is wasted time, for you and for them.
Each stage deserves its own deep-dive: I have written separate guides on how to build the budget, how to write a request to a foundation, where to find funding, and how grant-making foundations work. Keep the order: project and numbers first, the question of who funds last. Reversing it is the number-one reason requests are rejected.
A concrete example: how a festival gets funded
Theory becomes clear with a real case. For Gwenstival, the festival with which Radio Gwendalyn marked its twentieth anniversary, I wrote the dossier and coordinated the funders, raising CHF 45,000. The interesting part is not the figure, it is the method. The budget was built before writing to anyone, so we knew exactly how much was needed and how much to ask of each funder. Funders were not contacted at random, but chosen because their purpose matched the festival’s. And each request showed who was already supporting the project: no one was asked to cover everything alone.
It is the same pattern, at a different scale, that works for a small neighbourhood project or a cantonal programme. The amounts and the funders’ names change; the logic does not: clear project, solid budget, aligned funders, visible co-funding.
How much to ask for, and how long it takes
Amounts vary widely: from a few thousand to several tens of thousands of francs, depending on the foundation, the project, and how many funders cover the budget together. The rule is not “ask for the maximum”: it is to ask for a credible figure consistent with your funding plan. A disproportionate request — too high or too low — costs the project credibility.
On timing, the important thing to know is that it takes longer than people expect. Foundation boards meet only a few times a year; months can pass between a request and a decision, and the contribution is almost always paid after the project is delivered and reported. The practical timeline looks like this:
| When | Stage |
|---|---|
| 12–18 months before | Project and budget defined; funder list drawn up |
| 9–12 months before | Dossiers written and sent; align to board meeting dates |
| 3–9 months before | Decisions arrive (boards meet only a few times a year) |
| Project delivery | Costs incurred — the organisation pre-finances |
| After delivery | Reporting submitted; grant usually paid here |
Read the bottom rows carefully: because most grants are paid after reporting, the organisation has to be able to pre-finance the work. Anyone moving in June for a September festival is, in almost every case, too late.
The mistakes that sink a request
Most rejected requests do not fail because of a bad project, but because of avoidable mistakes: writing to a foundation whose purpose has nothing to do with the project, presenting a budget that does not add up, describing the initiative in insider jargon, moving on the wrong timeline, or asking a single funder for the entire amount with no co-funding. These are the five rocks I have seen sink the most projects — I have collected them, with the fixes, in a dedicated guide. Avoiding them matters more, almost always, than the brilliance of the project itself.
When it makes sense to get support
Building a fundraising function takes time and a method you learn by doing. I built mine in the field and refined it through the Impact Club programme at Impact Hub Ticino — which is precisely about defining a project, identifying its obstacles and audiences, and learning to present it to funders — and I keep it current at CENPRO events. In 2025 this work brought around CHF 200,000 to Radio Gwendalyn’s projects against an initial investment of CHF 25,000 — an eightfold return in twelve months — with dossiers written for funders such as Migros Kulturprozent, Pro Helvetia, Drosos and Ernst Göhner.
I work in Italian, English and French, based in Chiasso, on the border between Switzerland and Italy. That matters for one kind of client in particular: national and international organisations that need to operate in Italian-speaking Switzerland and do not have that reach in-house. This November I am part of the team organising WikiCon in Vezia — a Wikimedia community event hosted in the Italian-speaking region — exactly the kind of bridge between a national or international body and the local fabric that this work is about.
If your organisation has never done structured fundraising — or does it, but in a scattered, stop-start way — the fastest way to start is to get the foundations right: project, budget, funder list, deadlines. That is the work I do for cultural and social organisations in Switzerland. If you want to know whether your project is ready to be presented, get in touch: I reply within two working days. You can also see how I work.
Frequently asked questions
Can I do fundraising on my own, without help?
Yes, especially at the start and for small projects — this guide is exactly for that. Working with a professional makes sense when the stakes grow, when time is short, or when you want to build stable fundraising instead of chasing every project from scratch.
How far in advance should I move?
As a rule of thumb, 12–18 months before the project is delivered. Foundation boards decide only a few times a year, and the contribution is usually paid after reporting: the organisation must be able to pre-finance costs and plan well ahead.
My organisation is small — is it still worth it?
Yes. Foundations fund projects, not size. What counts is the fit between the project, the budget and the funder’s purpose — not how large the organisation is. A small but well-built project beats a large but confused one.
We operate nationally but not in Ticino — how do we reach Italian-speaking Switzerland?
Treat it as its own region, not an extension of the German- or French-speaking market. It has its own funders (ASFESI, local foundations), its own cantonal rules, and its own language and cultural codes. The fastest route is to work with someone who knows the local funders and can present your project credibly in Italian — the specific gap most national and international organisations have here.
How much does fundraising support cost?
It depends on the mandate: single-project consulting, a monthly retainer, or a part-time engagement. One thing is fixed: the fee is never a percentage of the funds raised — a practice professional fundraising associations advise against, because it creates conflicts of interest and undermines donor trust.
