Financials

Funding

In 2022 Noaber Foundation received the majority of its funding through a donation from a related trust fund. The level of funding remained stable and in line with prior years. During 2022 no funding was generated through (exits from) participations held by Noaber Ventures that was distributed to Noaber Foundation.

Noaber continues to strive to accelerate its impact through driving change, improving health. During 2020, Noaber evaluated its longer-term ambition and the associated funding for the coming years which resulted in an increased funding need for the years 2021 until 2025. Following discussions, the related trust fund acknowledged the ambition level for Noaber required an increased donation and confirmed the intent for that level for the period of 2021-2025. This donation is committed for 2023 and the intent remains to maintain that for the coming years. Therefore, for 2024 and beyond we expect a similar level of funding compared to the 2022 level.

The investments made by Noaber Ventures are considered an instrument that help to achieve the impact objective for Noaber Foundation in an entrepreneurial fashion. In 2023 and beyond, Noaber Ventures will continue to build its portfolio towards a more mature level and therefore will likely reinvest its income from participations in its impact investing portfolio, as has been the case in 2021 and 2022. Distributions from Noaber Ventures to Noaber Foundation are not expected in the coming years. 

Expenditures

The policy for Noaber Foundation is that at least 40% of funding received from the related trust fund is allocated towards donations and program-related expenses, while the remainder can be applied for impact investments through Noaber Ventures. During the past few years, the Board decided to deviate from the policy and allocate all available means, beyond organizational costs, to donations and program-related expenses. This has also been the case for 2022 as well as for 2023. This decision was prompted by the level of commitments made, the pipeline for donations, and the increasing level of proceeds from portfolio companies within Noaber Ventures enabling further impact investments without additional capital contributions. Depending on the further development of the pipeline for donations and the participations within Noaber Ventures, the full allocation towards program-related expenses might be reconsidered by the board for the years beyond 2023.

For the past few years, program-related expenses (including organizational costs) have been on a relatively stable level. Variations are mainly due to accounting principles that deviate from the cash basis of budgeting within Noaber. Donations granted in 2022 increased compared to 2021 as the number of projects granted increased and a new program focused on social health was initiated in 2022. We expect the level of donations granted and program-related expenses to increase in 2023 and beyond due to the increased maturity (and hence activity level) of our programs. For 2023 significant commitments to the tune of 300-500k per program have been budgeted for our programs in the field of lifestyle, population health, and social health 

In 2022 no capital contributions for impact investments through Noaber Ventures have been made following sufficient available proceeds from (prior) portfolio companies that are reinvested through Noaber Ventures. This trend is expected to continue in 2023 but might be reconsidered for the years beyond 2023 based on the need for capital contributions in the future to maintain the impact achieved by Noaber Foundation through its impact investments.

Noaber Foundation takes a complete capital approach towards its activities. Our contributions are not merely measured by the financial resources directly granted to other organizations but also through our own activities, initiatives, and resources. We believe we can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our innovation programs through an active approach taking initiative, building multi-stakeholder collaborations, facilitating sharing of experience, knowledge, network, and providing strategic and operational support to our projects and participations. This approach is reflected in the organizational costs as well as program-related expenses. We regard these organizational costs and program-related expenses investments into the impact achieved by the activities of Noaber Foundation. The strategic approach adopted by Noaber Foundation reflects our commitment towards an initiating, active, and engaged approach (driving change) to facilitate a system-level change steered towards health span and quality of life (improving health) as a result of which we expect the organizational costs to increase in the coming years. They are considered an essential and integrated part of our innovation programs.

Budget

The foundation has decided not to include budget figures in the consolidated and separate profit-and-loss account. The budget internally used by the Board is prepared on the basis of cash flow accounting instead of accrual accounting, and therefore the budget figures are not comparable to the gains and losses in the profit-and-loss account.