Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene hosted the first Monaco Summit on Philanthropy on 12 October, bringing about 100 leading donors to the Yacht Club de Monaco. The invitation-only gathering drew foundation founders, philanthropic families and representatives of royal and sovereign-linked institutions from more than 20 countries, together representing an estimated 150 billion euros in private wealth.
The Prince opened the day with a warning about the wider climate. He said the world was living through very uncertain times, with governments reviewing their priorities and international funding under pressure. Philanthropy, he argued, has freedoms that states lack: it can take risks, back neglected causes and plan across generations rather than electoral cycles. He then set out three challenges. The first was scale, growing resources without concentrating them among a handful of private actors. The second was transmission, involving the next generation now rather than simply handing on wealth. The third was technology, where he urged caution and said he hoped that “an algorithm will never decide for us what is worth supporting.”
Princess Charlene also spoke about artificial intelligence, asking how it could help meet human needs without losing the human touch. She urged delegates to keep beneficiaries at the centre of their work and to give them a voice in decisions that affect their lives. “For me, philanthropy begins with a willingness to care,” she said, adding that it also requires the humility to listen.
The programme included a Next Generation Circle that gave inheritors a platform in their own names, as well as sessions on philanthropy’s role in national economies, building public institutions and preparing for future crises, with a closing session on AI in practice. The Prince’s Prize for Innovative Philanthropy went to the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, a Dubai-based organisation, and was accepted by its director of sustainability and partnerships, Ibrahim Al Balooshi.
The summit was organised by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, with support from the Tocqueville Foundation. It grew out of a philanthropy round table that the Prince developed over 15 years with Jean-Guillaume de Tocqueville, and the organisers intend to hold it every year. The Prince’s foundation, now 20 years old, has backed more than 850 environmental projects, while Charlene’s has supported 808 projects in 45 countries, reaching more than 2.82 million beneficiaries, most of them children.
