Stiftung Schönau

The foundation is led by Managing Director Ingo Strugalla, who serves as the sole Geschäftsführender Vorstand. An eight-member Stiftungsrat (board) provides oversight and advisory support: four members represent the Evangelical Church in Baden, and four are external real-estate professionals, including executives from FOM Real Estate Gruppe and Schwatlo Management GmbH. Day-to-day operational and investment decisions rest with the Vorstand, while the Stiftungsrat approves strategic direction.

Stiftung Schönau is an independent legal entity that functions as a church foundation of the Evangelical Church in Baden. The majority of its financial proceeds flow directly into the church's budget for building construction, renovation, and pastoral positions. The foundation's website states its core purpose is enabling a 'vibrant and future-oriented church' through the responsible stewardship of its endowment.

The endowment was established in 1560 by Elector Palatine Frederick III, who transferred the assets of the dissolved Cistercian monastery in Schönau — including land, forests, and monastic buildings — into a charitable foundation for the church. This land-based origin still defines the portfolio today, centered on ground leases and forestry.

An Erbbaurecht is a hereditary building right, a form of long-term ground lease common in Germany where the landowner grants a party the right to construct and own a building on the land for a defined period (often 99 years). Stiftung Schönau holds approximately 21,000 such agreements, primarily in Baden-Württemberg's major cities. This structure generates stable, inflation-linked ground-rent income while retaining long-term land ownership — aligned with the foundation's perpetual mandate.

Yes. While the vast majority of its assets are in Baden-Württemberg, the foundation's disclosures reference indirect real estate investments in Europe and the United States. Details on the specific vehicles, fund commitments, or directly-held assets outside Germany are not publicly broken out.

The foundation manages 7,600 hectares of PEFC-certified forest across the Odenwald and Black Forest regions. It practices natural forest management, harvesting timber as a commercial resource while maintaining ecological standards. Timber from its own forests is used in foundation-led residential construction projects, creating a vertically integrated supply chain from forest to building site.

The foundation does not publicly disclose a formal co-investment policy. Its known partnership model is structured around church-land development: it works with Kirchengemeinden (local church communities) to source development parcels, executing residential and mixed-use projects that advance both financial and ecclesiastical goals — an internal, church-ecosystem approach rather than a conventional LP/GP co-investment framework.