FIA Foundation

FIA Foundation

An independent UK charity, the FIA Foundation was established in 2001 with a $300 million donation from motorsport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Its mandate is split between sustainable mobility, clean air, and road safety — a triple focus inherited from its founding moment and still visible in how it allocates grants. The endowment deploys capital through a philanthropic programme that funds vehicle safety testing, road infrastructure assessments, and policy advocacy. Its two largest operational partnerships are with the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and Global NCAP — the former rates the safety of roads, the latter crash-tests cars — giving the foundation a direct line from grant dollars to on-road outcomes. Geographically, work spans sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Alongside its operational grants, the foundation maintains an investment portfolio and directly owns the commercial property at 60 Trafalgar Square in central London, a structure that provides recurring income to support its charitable activities. Governance sits with a board chaired by Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who also serves as President of the FIA. Prior leadership included David Richards CBE, the motorsport executive and founder of Prodrive. The foundation is a core partner of the Climate & Clean Air Coalition and the UN Road Safety Fund. Its most recent publicly reported shift is deeper integration of its air-quality and road-safety efforts under a single sustainable-mobility framework, a move implemented by the programme team rather than through a new public vehicle. Structurally, the foundation is not a fiscally sponsored project but a fully independent endowment — an unusual posture in a sector dominated by corporate foundations and multilaterals. It owns its headquarters building outright, which removes landlord risk and partly explains how it maintained grantmaking stability through cycles when multilateral funding ebbed.