Private wealth, public good: the rise of strategic philanthropy in Sweden
15 May, 2025
Stefan Einarsson from the Department of Management and Organization provides the academic lens in Dagens Nyheter’s long-form feature on philanthropist Cristina Ljungberg and the new generation of Swedish billionaires turning to philanthropy.
Drawing on his latest data, Einarsson notes that Sweden’s about 17 000 public-benefit foundations now steward roughly SEK 418 billion and disbursed close to SEK 10 billion in 2024 alone, illustrating the scale at which private capital complements the welfare state.
Einarsson, one of only a handful researchers on this topic in Sweden, distinguishes traditional ”charity” from “strategic philanthropy”, which is more prevalent among the new wave of philanthropists. He also describes how they work with emergent partnership models that link donors, civil society and the public sector to address complex issues such as climate, integration and gender equality.
Read the full piece (in Swedish, paywalled) via this link.
