About us

The non-profit Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation was established in January 2014. The foundation’s initial endowment is made up of B class shares in KONE Corporation, donated to the foundation by Security Trading Ltd, a major shareholder of the KONE Corporation.

The foundation’s mission is to support and promote social welfare, culture, the environment and science, as well as associated teaching and research activities. The guiding principles of the foundation are openness, cooperation and dialogue.

During the early years, the foundation annually distributed nearly one million euros in grants for the promotion of research, the arts, social welfare, and projects with an environmental focus. In the 2020–2025 Strategy Period, the foundation is introducing a new operational model, according to which the foundation will actively seek the solutions best suited to its funding purposes, instead of receiving applications through open application cycles.

With this change the foundation aims to cut down unnecessary work generated by open grant application cycles: even with grant applications with the narrowest focus, the rate of accepted applications remains under ten per cent. In the last operating period 2022–2023, the foundation granted over two million euros for environmental projects aimed at global emission reductions in the steel industry.

For more information on funding opportunities or other forms of cooperation, go to the Contact us page.