If someone makes a profit during the interest rate and corona crisis, that's pretty remarkable. The Plauen Community Foundation can support eight projects with EUR 16,000. This is only possible because the entire team around the chairman of the board, Prof. Dr. Bernd Märtner and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees Gerold Kny are all volunteering. The current 24 members once received money from the Hans Löwel Foundation as start-up capital. In 2012, committed citizens of the city came together in the Plauen Community Foundation to provide sustainable, selfless education, assistance to young people and the elderly, art, culture and monument protection, social issues as well as sport and nature conservation for the benefit of the people living in the city to promote and develop. They started with 1.4 million euros. Despite a few complicated financial years, the Plauen Community Foundation was able to increase its available capital to 1,674,000 euros, although most German foundations were hit very hard in 2019

On 5th June 2019, the award ceremony for the German Benefactors' Prize took place at the German Foundation Congress in Mannheim. Prominent guests such as Winfried Kretschmann, Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, as well as the writer and cabaret artist Eckhard von Hirschhausen acknowledge the dedication of the 30,000 citizens who won awards. This year, it is the first time that the Federal Association of German Foundations is honouring such a large community of benefactors – including the Plauen Foundation – with the most prestigious award within the world of foundations.

At this year's AGM at the Sternquell Brewery, the Plauen community foundation was able to show a very good financial situation. The capital available to the foundation has been increased from an original sum of €1,400,000 (2012) to €1,650,000 (2017), although €108,000 has been disbursed towards the foundation's charitable objectives.

Dear Prof. Dr. Martin,

On behalf of the Community Foundations Working Group of the Federal Association of German Foundations, we congratulate you and the Plauen Community Foundation on the seal of approval for community foundations. The seal of approval is awarded annually on the basis of the “10 characteristics of a community foundation” formulated jointly by the community foundations in their working group. After more than 20 successful years of community foundation movement in Germany, more than 300 community foundations will bear the seal of approval on January 1, 2019.