The Board of Trustees of the ”la Caixa” Foundation re-elects Isidro Fainé as chairman
- Historic budget in the service of social commitment
- 2025 activity report
- Composition of the Board of Trustees of the ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation
The Board of Trustees of the ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation, which met last week, today agreed to renew the positions of trustees Isidro Fainé, Javier Godó, José María Álvarez-Pallete, Luis Carreras, Isabel Estapé, María Isabel Gabarró, Eugenio Gay, Francesc Homs and Pablo Isla, in all cases for the statutory period of four years. The Board of Trustees of the Foundation also unanimously agreed to re-elect Isidro Fainé as Chairman and Javier Godó as Vice-Chairman.
Furthermore, the Board of Trustees of the ”la Caixa” Foundation today unanimously approved the appointment of Baldiri Ros as a trustee of the ”la Caixa” Foundation, as proposed by the Institut Agrícola Català de Sant Isidre, for a term of two years. Baldiri Ros will join the Board at its next meeting, replacing Xavier Brossa, who was originally proposed by the Societat Econòmica Barcelonesa d'Amics del País (SEBAP) and whose term of office is coming to an end. Ros joins the Board as part of the rotation system reserved for the founding entities of the ”la Caixa” Foundation in its statutes.
The Foundation's Board of Trustees also approved the accounts for the 2025 financial year, in which it allocated a total of €655 million to its social work activities. Last year, the Foundation helped nearly 250,000 beneficiaries in Spain and Portugal through its direct social intervention programmes.
Since its transformation into a Banking Foundation in 2014, the ”la Caixa” Foundation has allocated €6.15 billion to the development of social initiatives, research, scholarships and culture with the aim of contributing to the improvement of society as a whole and especially the most vulnerable groups.
The highest governing body has also approved the Foundation's budget for 2026, which will reach a record €710 million, 8.4% more than the previous year. Since 2014, the entity's annual budget has increased by 63.3%.
The new budget for 2026 is in line with the Foundation's 2025-2030 Strategic Plan presented last June, which envisages the organisation investing more than €4 billion by 2030 to drive social transformation.
The president of the ”la Caixa” Foundation, Isidro Fainé, said: "I would like to thank the Board of Trustees for the trust they have once again placed in me to preside over the organisation. I believe that life is service, and in this sense it is a real honour to be able to continue a project which, thanks to the independence of action afforded by its more than 120 years of history, remains faithful to its principles and its vocation of service to society and to the most vulnerable members of society."
Isidro Fainé also highlighted that ‘with the new budget approved for 2026, we are redoubling our efforts to serve more groups and individuals, especially in the social sphere, at a time when poverty and inequality rates continue to rise, not only in Spain and Portugal, but throughout the world.’
Historic budget in the service of social commitment
Of the total investment planned for 2026, nearly 60%, more than €415 million, will be allocated to the development of social transformation programmes, such as CaixaProinfancia, which aims to combat child poverty; the Incorpora and Reincorpora projects for the integration of vulnerable groups into the labour market; the Programme for Comprehensive Care for People with Advanced Diseases, which aims to improve the quality of care for people at the end of their lives; the Elderly People's Programme, which aims to promote the social participation of this group; and the EduCaixa programme, which promotes educational transformation.
The research and scholarships area will have a budget of €147 million, 20% of the total budget. Noteworthy in this area are the calls for proposals to support medical research projects CaixaResearch for Health Research and CaixaImpulse for Innovation, as well as the development of the CaixaResearch Institute, a leading centre in the field of immunology, and the Scholarship Programme, which awards undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships to outstanding students and those from vulnerable groups.
Finally, another 20% of the total investment (€147 million) will be allocated to initiatives for the dissemination of culture and science through the network of CaixaForum centres, the CosmoCaixa Science Museum, travelling exhibitions and the programming of concerts and conferences, as well as CaixaForum+, the ”la Caixa” Foundation's own audiovisual platform.
In 2026, the ”la Caixa” Foundation plans to invest around €50 million in the development of major flagship projects such as: the CaixaResearch Institute, which is scheduled to open in 2026 and will be the first large cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research centre specialising in disease immunology in Spain and a world-class centre of excellence; the CaixaForum in Malaga, on which work will begin this year; and the ArtHub Centre in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, a new centre that will bring together and revitalise the works in the ”la Caixa” Foundation Contemporary Art Collection.
2025 activity report
Throughout 2025, the ”la Caixa” Foundation has strengthened its social programmes with the greatest transformative impact. Social challenges such as the fight against child poverty (in 2025, 68,000 children and nearly 44,000 families were assisted), the promotion of employment for vulnerable groups (with 43,000 new contracts, in collaboration with 17,000 companies), care for people with advanced illnesses (44,000 patients and 50,000 family members have been cared for in 2025) and the promotion of active and healthy ageing (20,000 activities for 567,000 users) constitute the strategic lines of action of the ”la Caixa” Foundation in the social sphere.
The joint action of these projects makes it possible to accompany vulnerable people through the different stages of their lives and to reach the whole of Spain, with a presence in every province. This direct social intervention has benefited nearly 250,000 people in the last year.
In addition, the Foundation has promoted more than 1,600 initiatives with social entities, with an investment of €49 million, through the Social Projects Call for Proposals programme. And, on an international scale, it has collaborated with 850 entities around the world since 1997 with the common goal of transforming lives.
At the same time, the Foundation supports talent, research and innovation in science to build a better and healthier world based on knowledge, with the construction of the CaixaResearch Institute in Barcelona as its flagship project. This facility will be the first research centre specialising in immunology in Spain and one of the first in Europe. Furthermore, in 2025, the Foundation has awarded 255 scholarships (including 50 scholarships for low-income undergraduate students) and has promoted 65 biomedical projects through calls for grants for research and innovation in health.
Furthermore, the Foundation promotes the transformative value of culture as a tool for inclusion, critical thinking and social cohesion, designing a wide and diverse cultural offering aimed at all audiences through its network of CaixaForum centres, the CosmoCaixa Science Museum and more than 37 exhibitions and 24,000 activities organised, which have received a total of 4.5 million visitors.
Composition of the Board of Trustees of the ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation
Chair: Isidro Fainé Casas
Vice-Chair: Javier Godó Muntañola
Members:
José María Álvarez-Pallete López
Maite Barrera Xaubet
Luis Carreras del Rincón (appointed by the Spanish Red Cross)
Isabel Estapé Tous
María Isabel Gabarró Miquel
Eugenio Gay Montalvo (appointed by Cáritas Diocesana de Barcelona)
Francesc Homs Ferret
Pablo Isla Álvarez de Tejera
Marc Murtra Millar
Asunción Ortega Enciso
Francisco Reynés Massanet
Baldiri Ros Prat (appointed by Institut Agrícola Català de Sant Isidre)
Artur Santos Silva