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Fondazione Roma implements initiatives and projects mainly across five principal areas of activity:
In addition to these sectors, the Foundation undertakes initiatives aimed at promoting the economic development of the territory, in keeping with the original welfare-oriented mission of the Cassa di Risparmio di Roma.
Public Health, Preventive and Rehabilitative Medicine
Fondazione Roma is active in the Healthcare sector both through its own initiatives and by supporting third-party projects deemed consistent with its intervention strategies and the objectives set out in its annual and three-year planning documents.
Among its directly managed initiatives, the earliest initiative is the Hospice, which since 1999 has represented a center of excellence in the field of palliative care and assistance to vulnerable patients.
This healthcare and social facility, managed by the operating body Fondazione Sanità e Ricerca and operating entirely free of charge, not only provides inpatient care for patients with limited life expectancy, but also delivers home care services to individuals suffering from cancer, ALS, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Another directly managed initiative, the most innovative and challenging on many levels, is the Villaggio Fondazione Roma, managed by the instrumental body Fondazione Roma – Salus. This residential facility, built entirely from scratch in the Bufalotta area of Rome, is fully designed and dedicated to patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
It closely reflects, for the first time in Italy, a model successfully tested in the Netherlands in the town of Hogeweyk, near Amsterdam, providing residents completely free of charge with an environment designed to enhance their quality of life. The Village offers a stimulating, safe, and reassuring setting where daily routines and lifestyles are recreated as closely as possible to those of a family home. This approach ensures an alternative therapeutic method to traditional care, helping to preserve each resident’s remaining cognitive abilities for longer and more effectively.
Furthermore, the Foundation supports public and non-profit private hospitals and healthcare facilities in its traditional area of operation and, for several years now, throughout Italy and internationally, by providing state-of-the-art medical equipment. The goal is to enhance the quality and volume of healthcare services offered to citizens in the areas of prevention, diagnostics, and treatment.
Over time, Fondazione Roma’s contributions have enabled Local Health Authorities, hospital trusts, university hospitals, classified hospitals, and Scientific Institutes for Research, Hospitalisation, and Healthcare (IRCCS) to equip themselves with the latest technologies for diagnostics, treatment, and patient care.
Of exceptional significance in terms of innovation and the ambition to transform the country’s existing model of care is the “Cuore” (Cardiovascular Unique Offer ReEngineered) project. Once completed, it will be a unique centre on a global scale, designed to overcome all the limitations of the traditional organizational model. Here, patients will no longer have to “chase” the expertise and consultations of various specialists; instead, they will be placed at the center of the diagnostic and treatment pathway, with all the necessary skills and professional expertise revolving around the patient.
Scientific and Technological Research
Closely linked to its substantial commitment to healthcare is the Foundation’s engagement in Scientific and Technological Research, based on the awareness that innovation is a fundamental driver of modernization for the country, as well as a strategic factor in strengthening competitiveness and fostering economic and social progress.
It should be noted that, in this field as well, Fondazione Roma has consistently based its choices on an objective assessment of the centres of excellence operating in the sector and of the most pressing needs.
Among its ongoing core initiatives, the Foundation continues to stand alongside the IRCCS Fondazione G.B. Bietti for Ophthalmological Study and Research (Onlus), a centre of excellence in research and treatment in its field, accredited within the Regional Health Service, of which it is a founding and majority member.
At the same time, the Foundation maintains and further strengthens its support for scientific research on Alzheimer’s disease, in continuity with its longstanding commitment and sensitivity toward this condition.
In this regard, in collaboration with the Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Campus Bio-Medico, the Foundation has launched its own initiative aimed at establishing an “Integrated Centre” bringing together all the necessary expertise to ensure, within a single structure, early diagnosis, preclinical research, clinical research, and the testing of innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Volunteering Philanthropy Charity
In this field, the Foundation is committed to providing support and resources to projects that address real needs within communities, without territorial limitations. It gives preferential attention to initiatives partnered with Church-affiliated entities and institutions, both to reaffirm its historical ties and given that such organizations are traditionally present in disadvantaged areas worldwide, through their long-standing commitment to solidarity and support for the most vulnerable, strong guarantees of reliability, competence, and shared ethical values.
Among these are the Diocese of Rome, with initiatives supporting peripheral parishes; the Diocesan Caritas organizations, distributing food vouchers; the Community of Sant’Egidio, providing aid to the Ukrainian population; the Circolo San Pietro, supporting two initiatives of significant social value; the Cucine Economiche and the Leone XIII Night Shelter, assisting the poor and vulnerable; and CUAMM – Doctors with Africa, implementing a series of interventions in Sub-Saharan African countries, aimed at achieving lasting and effective improvements access to and the quality of essential health services, particularly in maternal and child healthcare.
Equal attention and support are also given to initiatives originating from organizations not affiliated with the Church, provided they are deemed worthy and fully aligned with the guidelines, methods, practices, and objectives of Fondazione Roma, as well as with the foundational pillars guiding its actions, namely solidity, effectiveness, and innovation.
Of great significance, both for its merit and for its potential replicability, is the memorandum of understanding signed by the Foundation with UIL to provide timely financial support and social assistance to the families of victims of workplace accidents in the Lazio Region.
Arts. Cultural Activities and Heritage
On the cultural front, the Foundation plays a leading role through the Museo del Corso – Polo museale, which, since November 2024, has quickly established itself as one of the most dynamic and engaging exhibition venues in Rome and nationally. The Museum Complex, encompassing two historic Roman palaces, Palazzo Sciarra Colonna and Palazzo Cipolla, aims to promote a vibrant exhibition program, featuring projects that consistently offer new perspectives, scientific authority, and social impact.
These exhibitions are complemented by ancillary events and initiatives designed to broaden the audience as much as possible, reflecting the Museum’s distinctive social mission. This approach stems from the belief that culture is a powerful tool for social and spiritual elevation, and it should be accessible to everyone.
Palazzo Sciarra Colonna is open for guided tours, mostly free of charge, offering visitors the opportunity to admire its 18th-century interiors, the Art Collection, and the Historical Archive, which houses the two fonds of the Monte di Pietà of Rome and the Cassa di Risparmio di Roma. These spaces also host temporary exhibitions.
In contrast, the spaces of Palazzo Cipolla are dedicated to temporary exhibitions organized in collaboration with some of the most prestigious international museum institutions. Alongside scientific rigor, originality of the cultural program, and carefully curated displays, these exhibitions place strong emphasis on art as a tool for personal and collective growth, participation, and inclusion.
In line with the Museum Complex’s distinctive ethos of social engagement, specific pathways are designed for seniors and vulnerable individuals, alongside educational activities and visits tailored for schools and children. The program is further enriched with talks, workshops, screenings, musical and performance events that accompany the main exhibitions all of which are entirely free of charge.
Beyond its primary commitment through the Museum Complex, the Foundation is also active in the cultural sector through other significant initiatives, including the national “Gigi Proietti” Award, established in collaboration with the Gigi Proietti Foundation to support authors, actors, composers, and directors under the age of 35.
More than a commemorative event, it is a cultural investment, aimed at transforming memory into action in support of young talent. It also serves as a recognition for established artists, who are asked to donate the prize money to non-profit organizations of their choice.
Education Teaching and TraininG
In addition to the first- and second-level Master’s programmes offered in collaboration with IULM (“Management of Artistic and Cultural Resources” and “Languages and Oriental Cultures”) and LUMSA (“Experts in Politics and International Relations” and “Journalism”), the Foundation is active in this field through the FondAzioneRoma Symposium series. These symposia serve as an open forum for civil society on issues of broad public interest: a space that is not only physical, from which numerous operational proposals emerge shared, genuinely participatory and measurable initiatives, sometimes unprecedented and unexpected, yet consistently valued by the local community, institutions, and economic and social stakeholders.
Moreover, in the belief that sport—when experienced as a tool for education and inclusion—can represent the most authentic form of community welfare, the Foundation stands alongside courageous associations that embody and promote the values of inclusion, freedom, participation, and sharing. Among these is the Calciosociale sports association in Corviale which, thanks to the Campo dei Miracoli, has become a gathering place and a point of reference for young people in the neighbourhood and their families a space where youth are welcomed and supported through a comprehensive educational pathway encompassing legality, environmental awareness, and healthy nutrition.
The Foundation provides similar support to the Montespaccato Sports Group, a symbol of redemption through sport thanks to the “Talento & Tenacia – Crescere nella legalità” programme promoted by the “Asilo Savoia” Sports Association. This partnership, established in response to the acts of vandalism suffered by the sports centre, represents a firm and tangible answer to such incidents and, at the same time, a concrete investment in the future of young people and in the local community.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERRITORY
Through initiatives carried out in this area, Fondazione Roma aims to uphold the original spirit of the Cassa di Risparmio di Roma, of which it is the historical and ideal continuation. This spirit is expressed in the Preamble to the 1836 statute, which reads as follows:
“Work is the means by which Providence has enabled man to meet his needs and keep misery at bay. Yet even those who earn their necessary sustenance through industrious effort are, by the condition of human nature, subject to many and varied misfortunes that may render them unable or incapable of working. An illness that occurs can prevent labor for several days, or sometimes even for the rest of one’s life; a suspension of work deprives the worker of the useful employment of his arms and leaves him idle for more time; old age diminishes strength and may make earnings meager or even null at a stage of life when need increases. Finally, life and society present so many and such varied vicissitudes that, if man does not anticipate and provide for them, he may fall unhappily into destitution. It is true that Charity then stretches out her arms and, taking him from abandonment, welcomes him into institutions that care for the sick, support the elderly, protect widows, and provide work for the able poor. Yet many do not receive these benefits either because, although abundant, they are insufficient for all, or because vice, cloaked in the venerable rags of innocent poverty, diverts aid from the deserving.”
The philanthropic activity of the Cassa di Risparmio di Roma was also carried out through its banking operations through its banking operations an activity that Fondazione Roma can no longer engage in under current sector regulations.
However, unwilling to forgo the challenge of contributing, even in this area, to addressing the needs of the community, the Foundation sought a banking partner capable of enabling it to implement initiatives aimed at economic development within a specific territory.
Thus, a collaboration was launched with the Banca di Credito Cooperativo dei Castelli Romani to promote investments in support of businesses, aimed at developing projects in areas such as climate change, environmental sustainability, social and workforce development, governance, and more.
Within the framework of one of the FondAzioneRoma Symposium meetings on the Space Economy, an additional form of intervention was also identified: Venture Capital. In this context, the Foundation chose to invest through the Deep Blue Ventures (DBV) Venture Capital Fund Deep Ocean Capital SGR, to support risk capital for young start-ups in the Rome and Lazio area aiming to operate in the Space Economy, a sector of national excellence.