The Eva Ahlström Foundation was founded in the spring of 2010 by a group of fifth-generation female heirs of Eva and Antti Ahlström, the nineteenth-century Finnish industrialist couple. When the Ahlström businesses expanded globally in modern times, family members talked about their desire to create a platform, in which the family could help the communities where the businesses´ operated. The platform became the Eva Ahlström foundation, our medium for continuing Eva and Antti’s legacy. 

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Eva Ahlström was one of the first female industrial leaders in Finland. Eva and her husband Antti believed the company should take good care of the community in which they did business. That is why they actively supported their local communities and assisted local hospitals, schools and other good causes. Eva and Antti both worked devotedly to ensure that the next generation of Finns, especially girls, received an education. Their motto was simple: wealth imposes obligations. Therefore the Eva Ahlström Foundation was named in honour of this inspirational matriarch (1848-1920).

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In recent years, the foundation has grown financially, mainly through the Ahlström family’s private contributions. In 2018 The Eva Ahlström Foundation merged with and absorbed the Foundation Christina och Torsten Ahlströms minne ("to the memory of Christina and Torsten Ahlström), another foundation within the family.

 

Today the foundation is proud to have worked with several inspirational organizations, each one unique and devoted to improving human well-being. Each project and organization has proven the complexity of societal issues, but also the power of concerted action for effecting change. Eva and Antti Ahlström focused on helping the most vulnerable through investing in health and education. The foundation continues this by investing in the wellbeing of the most vulnerable in the society, women and children, who according to studies are the ones most affected by poverty, war and natural disasters