A look at the challenges of the future

With our sights set on 2025, we cannot forget what the year that is ending has meant for the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, because in order to project the challenges of that sustainable future that we want, it is necessary to review the path traveled. This path has been and is full of lines of action, many and very diverse, which reflect our will to move forward, to continue.

In 2024, the tenth anniversary of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation in Spain was celebrated, the accompaniment of more than 530 projects, the financial support of more than 39 million euros in scholarships and grants, and the links generated with the people who have collaborated with the Foundation in this decade. This milestone has been an ideal moment to stop and reflect and project ourselves more strongly towards the challenges of the future.

Our lines of intervention, Citizen Art and Sustainable Food, are the basis with which we try to promote collective change to build a future for all. If we take a look at the goals achieved in 2024, we must thank each of the collaborations that have inspired the steps we have taken on this exciting path.

Sowing sustainable
desiresIn 2024, the work in our Sustainable Food line has been based on support and networks. These pillars were made visible at the unoconcinco sustainable food meeting, which we hold every two years. This second edition took place at the Giner de los Ríos Foundation in Madrid with the participation of hundreds of people from very different sectors who came together to think about how to put food back at the center of our lives and society, resulting in a day full of reflections.

We have consolidated projects such as Sustentta, with which 12 agricultural cooperatives are making progress in their transition towards more sustainable practices from the proposed roadmaps, or the Network of Agricultural Test Spaces, which has been joined by more collaborators and through which a call has been managed to finance test spaces that are in the process of construction or consolidation. Ruralitud has been launched, a website that will accompany all those interested in the agricultural world and who need comprehensive advice to set up their own project.

The call for Territorialized Food Systems has evolved into the KmTierra pilot program, an initiative through which we want to contribute to configuring and structuring local food systems. In addition, we have started new initiatives such as the SABE Community, created so that people who have developed their research projects with the support of the Daniel Carasso Fellowship can address the enormous challenge of the food transition. For the future there are many initiatives underway, for example, Enzima, a project that will see the light of day in 2025 and that introduces us to the world of catering by ordering and grouping all the information on sustainable food so that it can be transmitted to kitchen professionals.

For the art that transforms
From the Foundation’s Citizen Art line we continue to bet on transformative projects that connect art with education, mediation and sustainability. We also promote new initiatives such as the Art to Come call, which seeks to strengthen the artistic fabric with grants for six selected projects by artists capable of imagining and creating new ways of inhabiting the world.

The PLANEA Network is now in its fifth year of life and continues its work of including artistic practices in education by working from schools in the Valencian Community, the Community of Madrid, Andalusia and La Rioja, where it also participates with great success in the Concéntrico architecture festival. Concomitentes is another of the projects that we have been accompanying for a long time. During this year, in addition to presenting the results of three concomitances, two publications have been launched and the Mediation Academy has been opened, an educational space to promote citizen participation through art. So much so, that they have received recognition as an outstanding project by the Observatory of Culture.

In the area of mediation and cultural democracy, the third edition of Alliances for a Cultural Democracy has also been held, which resulted in seven projects selected for support and funding. In addition, the third day of REMEDIAR took place, in which the path taken by the MAR Platform, carried out with the Reina Sofía Museum and hablarenarte, was reviewed, and the three NOTE residencies were presented, a call from which the fourth edition has just emerged. Together with this association we have also supported mediation studies with the Direct Complement scholarships.

The ACTS Network continues its work with prolific meetings, such as Medialab or Sónar+D, and support for artists and scientists through calls such as GRAPA or RACOR. In addition, in this search for the intersection of science, art and society, the publication .able was presented, a multiplatform magazine that responds to the complexities of today’s society.

Philanthropy and impact investing, seeds to be collected
In 2024, the philanthropic coalition with which we try to address the climate challenge as a priority, Foundations for Climate, has reached more than 289 Spanish foundations that have already joined the Pact for the Climate Emergency and Social Justice of the Foundation Sector. Also, the 9 Spanish Community Foundations, which are part of an international network, continue to work on the criteria for calls and on the identification of priorities for the sector of donor foundations. In addition, the Impact Foundations Fund, which continues to grow, has already reached the figure of 30 new foundations.

At the beginning of 2024, we selected five projects to receive soft loans in the second edition of the Tiina program, which we developed together with the Ship2B Foundation and which focuses on strengthening impact and business models in line with our lines of action. On the same day, we opened the call for the third edition, which has supported 14 initiatives in their incubation phase, of which 6 advanced to the acceleration phase, which will culminate on March 20, 2025 with a Demo Day.

Next year, the Foundation’s biggest impact investment commitment to date, Infinito Delicias, will open its doors. This initiative will be a living space, where innovation and creativity will go hand in hand to generate social and cultural impact, uniting people, ideas and experiences. Infinito Delicias wants to be more than a space for work, collaboration and production; It aspires to become a new generation cultural centre, a place for training, artistic creation, residencies, research and incubation of projects linked to the social economy. Here, our two main lines of work, art and sustainable food, will not only intersect: they will dialogue, enrich each other and invite us to imagine new ways of connecting. The team, which has been formed in recent months, is already working to make this project a reality.

Taking stock and looking ahead to the coming years
The Foundation supports initiatives that seek a more sustainable and fair future, promoting changes in the ecological and food transition, strengthening the artistic and cultural fabric, and promoting social innovation in different communities in Spain. The most important thing has been to connect people, ideas, and resources to find solutions that combine art, science, and sustainability. We believe that collaboration is key to achieving real and lasting improvements.

With renewed energy and great enthusiasm we face this year 2025 in which exciting projects will arrive at our Foundation. In the coming years, we will work to scale up the impact and take on significant challenges, such as the climate crisis, with a commitment to contribute to positive change for people and the planet.

In one sentence, the essence is that we continue to move towards a better future.

Ten years nurturing roots, sharing fruits and sowing futures. A life cycle in constant transformation that we hope to continue to travel by your side.

Happy 2025