Stiftung Zürcher Lighthouse

Stiftung Zürcher Lighthouse

Founded in 1988, Stiftung Zürcher Lighthouse operates as a competence center for palliative care in the city of Zurich. The foundation was established to provide terminally ill patients with a place for end-of-life care grounded in the principles defined by the World Health Organization. Hans-Peter Portmann serves as President of the Board of Trustees; Sophie Albers-Schönberg serves as Vice President. The foundation reports following Swiss GAAP FER 21, the accounting standard for Swiss non-profit organizations. The entity's financial structure is anchored by a series of directly held assets rather than a single pooled fund. A commercial property at Eglistrasse 1 in Zurich houses its core inpatient palliative care unit. The foundation also holds a mixed-use property at Carmenstrasse 42 in Zurich, a residential property in Immensee, and a marketable securities portfolio managed out of the city. Charitable partners including the Zurich English Speaking Theatre (ZEST) and the Lions Club Wädenswil provide regular external support, while the foundation's own operations are funded through its endowment. The Zurich Banking Association, where Portmann serves as Vice President, forms a further nexus, connecting the foundation indirectly to the city's financial center. The board leadership structure couples Portmann's financial and political heft — he holds a directorship at LGT Bank and a seat in the federal parliament — with Albers-Schönberg's operational vice presidency. The foundation's principal activity remains the direct provision of specialist palliative care, not the allocation of grants to third-party hospitals. Its assets therefore function as a self-insurance mechanism, holding enough capital to absorb operating shortfalls for the care facility without reliance on annual fundraising cycles. The structural differentiator here is the absence of a separation between the operating charity and its endowment. Stiftung Zürcher Lighthouse does not subcontract care delivery to a hospital chain; it owns the facility and runs the clinical program itself. For allocators or peer endowments studying models where an asset base directly powers operating infrastructure — rather than distributing proceeds — this foundation offers a compact Swiss case study. The board's links to Zurich private banking also mean investment decisions likely flow through a circle of relationships rather than an open RFP process.