One of Germany’s most important and largest Hamburg foundations is named after the politician and publisher Gerd Bucerius. Gerd is famous because he founded the popular German newspaper Die Zeit and afterwards owned the magazine Stern, was a Hamburg senator and a member of the Bundestag.

The charitable organization was founded in 1971. For more than 40 years the assets of the foundation have grown and now amount to 770 million Euro. This places the foundation among the ten most influential non-governmental charities in Germany. The foundation even owns one of the first private institutions of higher learning in the country, the law school.

The organization’s leaders pay special attention to the financing of education: solid funds are allocated, but the approach to their investment is systematic. For example, one of the popular programs is to support immigrant students who want to become teachers. In this way the problem of obtaining quality education and employment for this category of population is solved.

Another important activity of the organization is to solve the problems of the free press in Eastern Europe by issuing grants and organizing competitions. Since 2000, the best journalists have been awarded prizes in the “Free Press in Eastern Europe” category.