During the last decade, private foundations have taken up an increasingly central role in sponsoring projects and programs across all levels of public education in Denmark, reflecting a global trend toward private sector participation in public education (Erfurth & Ridge, 2021). While some donations come in the form of money to projects formulated by schools or municipalities themselves, recent years have seen private foundations take a more proactive role in shaping and developing projects, teaching materials, digital platforms, know-how, and partnerships.

It is important to analyse how private foundations observe their purpose and environment when the foundations are not only funneling money to public schools, but are also actively involved in generating partnerships and programs. Under the monitor of ‘venture philanthropy’ or ‘new philanthropy’, recent studies have begun to shed light on how contemporary private foundations appear to implicate a high degree of expectations for a return on their philanthropic actions (Junemann & Olmedo 2019; Lubienski et al. 2022; O’Neill & Powell 2022; Olmedo 2014; Rowe 2021; Rowe 2022; Saltman 2010). This paper contribute to this emerging field of research, assuming the return on investments not necessarily being in the sense of profit but rather as a matter of influencing the Danish school and future society.

The paper thus focus on the objectives and strategies of the private foundations and of the private companies financing the foundations. How and why do the foundations want to influence school and future society? How do they do it and what are their considerations? What is the strategy with the foundation of the mother company? The theoretical framework is drawn from business and management studies. This is in order to be able to describe the objectives and strategies of the foundations in a language close to their self-descriptions. Henry Mintzberg and his strategy concept (Mintzberg 1987; Mintzberg et al. 2009) is a classic in the field of strategy studies. With his 5 p’s for strategy (plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective) Mintzberg opens to a set of analytical questions (Mintzberg 1987, p. 20-21). How leaders try to establish direction for organizations (plan), how threats, feints and other maneuvers are employed to gain advantage in direct competition (ploy), how consistency in behavior gradually forms (pattern), how organizations find their positions and protect them in order to meet competition (position), and how intentions diffuse through a group of people to become shared as norms and values (perspective).

Lodged in a relatively small, homogenous and publicly financed school system with a well-established pedagogical tradition, the Danish case of private foundations and public schooling provides an ideal space to explore the strategies and impact of private foundations in a welfare state setting. The two Danish foundations, Novo Nordisk/LIFE and Lego Foundation, constitutes the empirical cases. The two foundations are the most granting foundations in Denmark (Fondenes Videnscenter 2022). They share an international profile and outreach and they have formulated objectives for Danish School. LIFE focus on science (LIFE 2022), Lego on play (Lego 2022). The Novo Nordisk foundation’s LIFE is a “nationwide science education initiative”, channeling DKK 1.9 billion into improving science education in public schooling over a ten-year period (Novo Nordisk 2022). From the foundation’s LIFE Campus in Lyngby, LIFE presently has around 120 employees who facilitate, teach and develop lessons for science instruction in schools. The goal of the LEGO Foundation is to “re-define play and re-imagine learning”. With partnerships like Playful Learning (Knudsen & Rasmussen 2023) they aim at building “a future where learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners” (Lego 2022).

The empirical material consists of website documents, podcasts, and videos from Lego Foundation and Novo Nordisk / LIFE. These data have the character of what Niklas Luhmann calls ‘cared semantics’, i.e., meaning productions, where concepts, distinctions, symbols and images are carefully composed (Luhmann, 1993: 19). This material is combined with interviews with leaders (LIFE/CEO Christine Antorini and LEGO foundation/CEO Anne-Birgitte Albrechtsen, LEGO foundation/Danish director Lena Vedelborg Pedersen) in order to achieve insights into intentions and considerations. The project analyses the private foundations policies and strategies in three ways: 1. Their strategies for entering in and engaging with public education, including how the foundations describe themselves and their environment (where schools, governments, municipalities etc. are described as markets, target groups, partners, competitors, and resources) 2. The articulation of the political ambitions concerning pedagogy as well as of the future, society and subject/student, 3. The forms of knowledge and concepts produced in the financed projects. Focusing on two foundations opens to comparison as an analytical resource. Following Mintzberg’s concept of strategy and the analytical resources embedded in this, helps focusing on the strategies of the private foundations and get an understanding of the patterns that emerge through and in the programs and partnerships, the shared norms and values, the plans, positions and even ploys.

The conclusion has two parts. One deals with the strategies of the private foundations from their perspective. The outcome is a description of the foundations’ philanthropic policy that takes the foundations’ ambitions at face value and how they realize their ambitions. The other part deals with the relationship between the companies (Lego company and Novo Nordisk) and the foundations. Seen from the company, the foundation is part of a larger business strategy, though not necessarily in the form a direct return of investments. It may be a matter of using Denmark as a laboratory for developing new concepts or ensuring the future trained workforce. Both parts of the conclusion are necessary in order to understand the private philanthropic education policies currently evolving. This paper is part of a bigger project on private foundations and public schools (with Lisa Rosén Rasmussen and Lucas Cone). Other parts of the project focus on the impact that private foundations have on public schooling, educational professionalism, and classroom interaction.

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