Governance of a foundation must notably aim at making the most of these two advantages. To do this, we must first look at how these advantages can be used for the best to deal with the major challenges facing humanity. In practice, foundations generally respond by focussing on a narrow field of action and within it, financing a large number of projects i.e. actions that are delimited in terms of time and space, and separate from one another. It implies financing isolated actions with a visible short-term impact. That is the purpose of our paper.
Realism consists in starting from the world as it is and modeling action according to that reality.
On the other hand, idealism consists in starting from what we are or want to be in order to mentally model the world in that image. Idealism, in a word, is simply wishful thinking, taking a projection onto reality for reality itself. Conversely, realism consists in starting from real challenges that are inevitably disproportionate with respect to the size of the foundation, to determine, with respect to these challenges, the forms of action that are most likely to benefit from a foundation independence and its possibility of acting in the long term. These are words often heard within a foundation. In today's world, many difficulties result from the off-set between our way of thinking and the real situation facing us.