The celebration of the IYFF (International Year of Family Farming 2014) gave impetus to a group of foundations to launch the European Foundations for Family Farming (E4F) initiative, with the support of the European Foundation Centre (EFC). This initiative seeks to raise the visibility of the family farming agenda among foundations, increase awareness of the role and contribution of foundations and their partners in this area, and create opportunities for connecting philanthropic actors with other key stakeholders and international processes on family farming. This report was commissioned to help inform and support these goals.

The study is based on in-depth interviews with foundation representatives, a quick scan of foundations working on family farming and a literature review. For the in-depth case studies, 14 European foundations, 1 African foundation and 1 American foundation1 were interviewed on their strategies and operational choices, their perceptions towards and interventions in family farming, the role of foundations in family farming, types of collaboration they engage in and on their work on the three identified themes. Interviewees were also asked for some minimal, quantitative information and additional documents and websites were reviewed.