For Fundación Botín, the year 2024 was unquestionably marked by the sad death of Jaime BotínSanz de Sautuola y García de los Ríos, a member of the Foundation’s governing board since its creation in 1964 and vice-chairman of the Board of Trustees since its creation in 1995.
Not only was Jaime Botín one of the leading bankers of his generation, but, even more importantly, he was an enlightened man: cultured, open, ahead of the ideas of his time and, above all, a person with an intellectual honesty and a critical and constructive view of reality that gave him a privileged vision and a natural skill for leadership.
And throughout his very long life, he devoted considerable efforts to philanthropy through his involvement in Fundación Botín. At the outset, the aim was to assist, initially in Santander, the most needy groups that were still outside the scope of action of public administrations. In a second stage, in the early years of this century, the Foundation began to develop long-term programmes to contribute to the development of our society in the fields of science, education and rural development. More recently, the Foundation has further developed those programmes, expanded them, and above all innovated in its ways of intervening in society and acting as a network, to make them grow even beyond our borders, measuring and monitoring their social impact in order to ensure maximum efficiency in the use of its resources.
Jaime Botín was involved in all of this, and is largely responsible for it, following in the footsteps of our founders, Marcelino Botín and Carmen Yllera, and of the other generations of the family and collaborators who have worked for the Foundation’s social mission from 1964 to the present day.
In 2018, Jaime Botín’s commitment became even more visible, when he decided to donate to the Foundation a set of portraits from his personal collection, works by great masters of the 20th century, to be permanently exhibited in a new room created for this purpose at Centro Botín, accompanied by a very generous annual financial endowment. Not only will these works enrich the experience of visiting the Centre, but they will forever remind us of Jaime Botín and will be the best evidence of his philanthropy.
Even more so as, coinciding precisely with the presentation of this report, this room, newly refurbished and extended, is being re-opened. It will incorporate another nine magnificent works from his collection, this time, and in accordance with Jaime Botín’s wishes, on loan from his heirs.
Those of us who are currently in charge of managing Fundación Botín take on the legacy of our predecessors. We are responsible for preserving and building on everything they did, as well as maintaining their commitment and their critical eye in order to contribute to the improvement and development of our society.
And I humbly believe that we are doing so. I am not referring only to Fundación Botín, but to the Spanish social sector in general, which in recent decades has played an important role in building a fairer, more sustainable and more humane society. In our view, this is being achieved through three fundamental levers: innovation, above all in how actions are carried out; collaboration, both with the public and private sectors and between the community organisations themselves; and, lastly, measuring social impact and efficiency, which has a lot to do with precisely defining our goals.
At Fundación Botín, we are convinced that, if we continue these endeavours, as we plan to, we in the social sector will continue to make a fundamental contribution to building a better future. And if, in addition, we further enhance our transparency and communication, as we are, we will also get society to recognise this venture, support it and make it grow.
Javier Botin
Chairman of the Board
