Canopus Foundation

Environmental protection, poverty alleviation, entrepreneurial commitment, education, and science

The Canopus Foundation is a private family foundation registered as a charitable organization under German law which has been committed to rural electrification in developing and emerging countries since 1997. Since 2014 Canopus has also been working in the field of education and research for a sustainable economy.

Canopus supports social enterprises and charitable organizations which produce, plan, and implement regenerative energy systems for rural electrification, with the aim of alleviating poverty in off-grid rural areas and poor urban neighbourhoods by providing access to environmentally-friendly energy systems. Business expertise is offered in addition to financial resources.

Since 2014 the Canopus Foundation has been a shareholder of the HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA Governance Platform (HVGP) gGmbH in Berlin, since 2015 we are supporting the Cusanus University in Bernkastel-Kues, Germany. Since 2019 Canopus has started to donate to the „Forum for a New Economy“ in Berlin. These commitments are aimed at contributing to solving the legitimacy crisis of the economic sciences and supporting research and teaching with regard to sustainable economics.

The activities of the Canopus Foundation are based on the model of “Venture Philanthropy”.