America for Bulgaria Foundation

The America for Bulgaria Foundation is an independent American grant-making organisation that began its work in Bulgaria in 2009. It succeeds the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, established in 1991 to support private business during the country’s economic transition. Proceeds from the fund’s investments, including the 2008 sale of its majority stake in the Bulgarian American Credit Bank, provided the foundation’s endowment. Its grants have supported education, cultural heritage, science and civic initiatives, including Sofia’s Muzeiko children’s science centre. Its programme now emphasises private-sector development, democratic resilience and cooperation between business and civil society. Set up in 2009 with the endowment left by the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund — itself created in 1991 under the American SEED Act — the foundation gives away roughly twenty million dollars a year in Bulgaria out of a corpus of four hundred million. Education, cultural heritage, civic life and private enterprise are its four fields; by 2019 it had put some 200 million dollars into nearly 900 projects. Music education is among them: the Fortissimo children's concerts, devised by the conductor Maxim Eshkenazy, have run with its support.