A new nationwide business strategy has now been launched, bringing together some of the country’s leading employers around a shared goal: 1,000 companies supporting 100,000 young people on the journey from exclusion to inclusion over the next 10 years by creating pathways to employment and education. The initiative is led by Caroline Berg, CEO of Axel Johnson, together with Carl Bennet, Åsa Bergman, Daniel Sachs, and Peter Wallenberg Jr.

The Daniel Sachs Foundation is one of the founders of the organisation and is represented in the steering group with Executive Director Paul Alarcon and Chair Daniel Sachs.

Forum for Inclusion brings together representatives from business and civil society to turn exclusion into inclusion. The initiative marks a shift in how the business community views social responsibility – from goodwill to strategy, and from project-based efforts to long-term investment.

The strategy is built on the conviction that existing efforts can be made more powerful by being gathered, coordinated and extended to more participants. For young people, this means networks, motivation and clearer pathways to employment and education. For society at large, it means lower costs associated with exclusion and strengthened competitiveness and growth through better use of human capability and ambition. For the participating companies, the commitment provides access to broader talent pools while also giving back to the communities in which they operate.

Forum for Inclusion will work alongside companies across seven tracks of concrete tools and methods for making a difference in young people’s lives, including – but not limited to – the following:

• Introduction to work: Offering internships, part-time jobs and apprenticeship programmes, primarily during the teenage years.
• Recruitment: Developing routines, methods and tools to reach a wider range of candidates.
• Skills development: Future-proofing young people with new competencies in areas including AI, technology and personal finance.
• Place development: Increasing safety and trust in areas of exclusion in collaboration with property owners and local businesses.

Steering Group for the Forum for Inclusion

Initiators

Caroline Berg, CEO of Axel Johnson (Chair of the forum)
Carl Bennet, CEO of CBAB
Åsa Bergman, President and CEO of Sweco
Daniel Sachs, CEO of PCP
Peter Wallenberg Jr, Chair of the Wallenberg Foundations

Leaders and experts

Ahmed Abdirahman, CEO of the Järvaveckan Foundation
Paul Alarcón, Executive Director of the Daniel Sachs Foundation
Nasim Khosravi, Head of Operations at Axelerate
Anna König Jerlmyr, CEO of the Arwidsson Foundation
Eva Nordmark, former Minister for Employment
Sylvia Schwaag Serger, President of IVA
Elsa Wallenberg Esser, the Wallenberg Foundations

National Coordinator

David Orlic

Read more in this interview in Dagens Industri and on the Forum website.

Photo: Joey Abrait (Di)

At the Daniel Sachs Foundation, we describe democratic and institutional renewal as the meta-challenge of our time: it determines whether societies can credibly act on the long-term challenges they face. Climate is one of the clearest tests of this. The question today is not whether democracies can produce climate policy, but whether they can sustain trusted mandates, durable coalitions, and fair delivery over time. Climate policy is only as durable as the institutions that uphold it. Democratic renewal is climate critical.

Across Europe, public concern about climate change remains high and support for climate neutrality by 2050 is stable (Eurobarometer, June 2025). The challenge is declining public trust that governments can deliver a fair and effective transition. This gap between concern and delivery trust is where policy implementation becomes fragile. But the same data also reveals an opportunity: because voters are not leaving the mainstream ideologically, they can be won back through renewed political leadership and governance.

Europe’s “traditional mainstream” still governs many institutions, but it is struggling to lead, particularly on high-friction, long-horizon transitions like climate. The challenge is less a lack of policy ideas and more about public confidence in institutions’ ability to deliver fair transitions. The key question is therefore not whether democratic systems can produce climate policy, but whether they can sustain credible mandates, durable coalitions, and trusted delivery over time.

Climate policy demands something unusual of democratic institutions: sustained public acceptance of short-term costs for long-term collective benefit, maintained across multiple electoral cycles and distributional conflicts. That acceptance needs institutional trust. Citizens accept costs when they believe the system imposing them is fair, competent, and responsive to their concerns. Where that confidence is weak, even widely supported policies can struggle to endure. Strengthening democratic institutions and leadership is therefore increasingly a prerequisite for effective climate action.

A growing field of democratic and political innovation is emerging to address this challenge, focusing on leadership renewal, stronger connections between civic life and institutions, and new participatory approaches that give citizens a meaningful voice in major societal transitions. This field remains significantly under-resourced. For funders, supporting democratic renewal can be understood as a form of long-term climate infrastructure, helping ensure that climate policies can be adopted, sustained, and implemented effectively over time.

The challenge is about trust, not ideology

It is tempting to frame the rise of populism as an ideological wave. The evidence says otherwise. Polling by Datapraxis across France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Poland consistently shows that 75-80% of voters remain in the broad mainstream, supporting a regulated market economy, a rules-based welfare state, climate action, and managed borders. Two-thirds of people voting for the populists do so because they are desperate for change, not because they prefer the policies. Between 60-80% of Europeans agree that politicians are out of touch with people like them. In most EU member states, around half or more consider their political system broken; in Italy and France, the figure exceeds seven in ten. National election turnout has fallen from nearly 80% to 68%, and EU election turnout is low in many EU member states.

These trends point less to ideological polarization and more to declining confidence in institutions. Many citizens want change at any price. Eurobarometer 103 (Spring 2025) found only 36% of EU citizens trust their national government. The OECD’s 2024 Trust Survey reports that 53% believe the political system does not allow people like them to have a say. The V-Dem Institute’s 2025 Democracy Report records just 29 liberal democracies worldwide, the lowest since the end of the Cold War.

Low trust increases the political risk of climate policy

For climate funders, the declining institutional trust is becoming a core delivery risk for climate policy. A Bruegel policy brief (February 2025), surveying 7,819 Europeans across five countries, found that while Europeans still want climate action, many do not trust governments to deliver a fair transition. Bruegel warns explicitly that delay or “going soft” increases the opportunity for populist actors to sow doubt about climate policy effectiveness and fairness. Research in the Journal of Public Policy demonstrates a concrete mechanism: low trust reduces acceptance of climate policies with visible costs and leads citizens to overestimate the costs of action. Trust erosion does not just weaken political will; it actively inflates perceived costs, creating fertile ground for backlash.

These dynamics are already visible in debates around climate legislation, at both national and EU levels.

The causal chain is circular: trust decline produces political fragmentation, which produces coalition instability, which produces policy fragility, which produces climate rollback, which further erodes trust. Without intervention, this cycle appears to accelerate.

The opportunity: democratic renewal as climate infrastructure

Funders investing in climate have historically invested downstream: in technology, mitigation, and adaptation. That work remains essential. But it rests on an assumption that the political conditions for implementation will hold. That assumption is becoming less certain. Investing upstream, in the democratic infrastructure that sustains policy over time, is becoming a precondition for climate impact.

Because the crisis is about trust, not ideology, there is a clear path forward. What is needed is credible renewal: new voices, new leadership, and policies that substantively improve people’s daily lives, combined with democratic methods that give citizens genuine voice in how transitions are designed. The OECD finds that the largest trust gaps are associated with whether people feel they have a say in government action, which means that political representation as well as participatory methods like citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting respond to root causes of policy fragility. Studies of young people’s political disengagement show that a dominant barrier is weak representation: “There is no one like me in politics. There is no one who understands my situation.” Across Europe, there is predominant agreement that politicians should focus on the real concerns of ordinary people.

A growing field of democratic and non-partisan political innovation is now emerging to address these challenges, building the conditions for leadership renewal, for substantive solutions, and for strategies that connect new leaders and ideas to voters. This field remains dramatically underfunded.

How the Daniel Sachs Foundation works in this space

The Daniel Sachs Foundation works with the reimagination and renewal of democracy. We focus on the void between civic life and institutions where renewal becomes possible, and operate through a model we call funded activism: identifying structural problems, finding the people best positioned to lead, testing solutions, and scaling them with others.

Some examples relevant to this context: The Better Politics Foundation that builds and supports the growing field of political leadership innovation, accelerating och convening over 120 organisations working to renew politics across almost 50 countries, and through the Better Politics Fund ; a global pooled fund that directs investment to political changemakers across this emerging field.

Open societies are not self-sustaining. They must be cultivated. The resignation many feel about the current political moment can and must be turned into energy for change. The future of climate policy will not be shaped by technology or targets alone, but by whether we invest in the democratic soil from which durable policy grows.

What philantrophy can do:

Strengthening democratic capacity can be understood as a form of risk mitigation and long-term impact protection. Fund democratic and non-partisan political renewal, organisations cultivating new leadership pipelines, initiatives connecting civic life and social movements to formal politics, and platforms training leaders who can sustain commitments through electoral cycles. Fund leadership resilience infrastructure: mentoring, peer networks and support systems that enable transformational leaders to remain in public life.

Fund deliberative methods that rebuild democratic legitimacy for the green transition. Citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting, and new engagement methods create the social license for climate policy that top-down regulation alone cannot sustain.

Daniel Sachs calls attention to the root causes of declining trust in institutions and the rules-based order in a new piece in project Syndicate.

Proliferating wars and shaky alliances are hallmarks of today’s brutal new political reality, one that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. But the geopolitical rupture currently underway is no accident of history, nor is it simply the result of strongmen, weak institutions, or a sudden loss of restraint.

It mirrors something more fundamental: the social soil of our societies. Politics does not occur in a vacuum. It grows out of lived experience, reflecting whether people feel secure, respected, and optimistic about a shared future. For years, political volatility has been treated as a series of external shocks. But today’s reality is the culmination of choices made over many decades.

Like all political shifts, this one has a supply side and a demand side. Yet most commentaries on the new world disorder focus disproportionately on the supply side: authoritarian leaders and new doctrines, blocs, or geopolitical arrangements that might replace liberal democracy and the rules- based international order. While important, this perspective ignores the demand that is driving current political trends. Why are so many people willing to support authoritarian ideas and leaders?

Continue reading the article on Project syndicate.

From the mountain top in Davos the discussion is dominated by the symptoms of a new political reality.

But the geopolitical rupture so clearly named is not an accident of history. It is not simply the result of stronger men, weakened institutions, or a sudden loss of restraint. It mirrors something more fundamental: the social soil of our societies. Politics is never autonomous. It grows out of lived experience – out of whether people feel secure, respected, and hopeful about a shared future.

For years, political volatility has been treated as external shocks; a series of crises to be managed. But increasingly, it looks like a reckoning with choices and policies made over decades.

Like for all political shifts, there is a supply and a demand side underlying the societal and geopolitical developments we are living through.

In the conversations about this new order, or dis-order, enormous attention is paid to the supply of new political paradigms, strong leaders and ideas: new doctrines, new blocs, new geopolitical arrangements and the reversal of liberal democracy and a rules-based international order.

Far less attention is paid to the demand that drives these political outcomes. Why are large shares of the population compelled to support these political ideas and leaders? Polling and data tell us that this is not driven by ideological shifts, but by the collapse of institutional trust, by citizens who no longer believe that existing systems work for them, or that liberal democracy still offers a credible path to a good life.

We have allowed inequalities to harden, social mobility to stall, trust to erode and all of that has led to fractures in our social cohesion. This is the soil in which this disruptive new political reality has grown over the last decades.

This is the demand side; the desperation for change that authoritarianism exploits. Not a sudden conversion to extreme ideas, but a slow loss of faith that democratic institutions can meaningfully improve everyday life. When trust erodes, people stop asking whether ideas are good, and start asking whether anyone is listening at all.

This is the deeper danger. When root causes are hidden by symptoms, democratic backsliding, polarization, and authoritarian temptations are treated as isolated pathologies, rather than as expressions of unmet social needs.

From the perspective of the Daniel Sachs Foundation, this is the central challenge of our time; renewing our institutions and the people who populate them to better answer the legitimate demands of citizens, not resorting to extreme politics.

Democratic renewal does not begin in constitutions or conferences. It begins with whether societies generate broad prosperity, real social mobility, and a genuine sense of a shared stake in society. Without this, democracy risks becoming a fragile ritual; repeated but no longer believed.

Democratic renewal is thus not abstract. It is about institutions that deliver. That invite participation rather than distance. That create pathways from voice to influence, from engagement to leadership and pathways to improved chances in life.

We need a serious commitment to confront structural problems without ideological shortcuts. Open societies must be both economically dynamic and socially cohesive; both globally engaged and domestically rooted; both principled and pragmatic (reflecting Finnish President Alexander Stubb’s argument for values-based realism).

This work cannot be outsourced to politics alone. Business shapes opportunity and needs to act as a trustee of an open, democratic, institutionally stable and socially cohesive society. Philanthropy can experiment and invest long-term where markets and states cannot. Civil society builds trust, voice, and agency. Politics must integrate these forces into a credible social contract.

For institutions to be relevant, representative and in service of citizens, we need to address the gap between people and politicians. Democracies do not renew themselves without new people and new methods of deliberation that ensure a broad sense of a stake in the system. Without this, institutions will continue to feel closed, distant, and self-referential.

What gives me cautious optimism in Davos this year is not consensus (there is very little of that…), but honesty and increasing realism. A growing recognition that nostalgia is not a strategy (as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney aptly put it): the tension around Greenland and the relationship between long-term allies, alongside the horrific ICE violence in the US, are making it blatantly clear that pretending the old order will simply return is a form of avoidance. It is also making it clear that legitimacy, once lost, cannot be restored through rhetoric alone.

The work ahead is slower, less theatrical, and more demanding. It requires rebuilding the foundations of open societies: education systems that open real paths to mobility, economic models that foster economic dynamism while ensuring wide-spread prosperity, institutions that treat citizens as participants, not problems; and leadership that tells the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.

This is long-term work by design. It is not about winning the next news cycle or launching the next grand framework. It is about restoring the conditions under which democratic life can breathe. About fixing the broken pipeline between movements and mandates, between civic energy and public authority. Replacing cynicism with agency, and protest with possibility.

At the Daniel Sachs Foundation, our work and focus remains exactly here – where social cohesion, political renewal, and responsible leadership meet. Because democracy becomes fragile when too many people feel it no longer belongs to them.

If there is one lesson this moment offers, it is that open societies are not self-sustaining. They must be cultivated; patiently, collectively, and with humility. The future will not be shaped only by power, but by whether we are willing to tend the soil from which our politics grow.

As important as it is not to externalize the political changes we are experiencing, to realize that we are all integrated in the soil where these ideas have been allowed to take root; as important to now focus on the agency we all have in building something better. We must replace complacency and the time and energy invested in worrying or creating scenarios for the future with investing in taking our own part in building a different reality.

Daniel Sachs, Chair of the Daniel Sachs Foundation

Noura Berrouba joins the Daniel Sachs Foundation as Chief of Staff!

Noura brings a history of impactful leadership, most recently as President of LSU – The National Council of Swedish Children and Youth Organisations, and a deep commitment to democracy, human rights, and inclusion. She serves on the boards of the Global Shapers Community at the World Economic Forum, Civil Rights Defenders, and our own Stiftelsen Höj Rösten, making her a powerful advocate for our mission.

We are at a critical moment for democracy. At DSF, we are committed to rising to the challenge – scaling our efforts through both ongoing initiatives and bold, new high-impact solutions. Noura will play a key role in strengthening our network of partners and help us advance our mission to reimagine democracy.

“I’m excited to step into a role where I’m not just joining a team that defends democracy, but one that dares to reimagine it – making it more inclusive, more resilient, and more visionary. At a time when democracy is tested and the world feels increasingly uncertain, the mission and approach of the Daniel Sachs Foundation is all the more important. I’m eager to work with bold, ambitious people, initiatives and partners who are committed to shaping the future of democracy”, says Noura Berrouba.

The conversation around Europe’s business climate is filled with concern – about U.S. productivity, China’s innovation, and Europe’s regulatory landscape. But this is not a time to retreat or react defensively. It’s a time to lead.

In a recent op-ed in Dagens Nyheter, Daniel Sachs makes the case that Swedish and European businesses must stay focused on long-term growth, innovation, and sustainability—without being pulled into short-term political trends or the polarization seen elsewhere. Our strength lies in the institutions and values that have built our prosperity. Now is the time to reinforce them.

Read the full article here.

In the latest episode of the Heja Framtiden podcast, Paul Alarcón Alanes, Executive Director of the Daniel Sachs Foundation, shares his inspiring journey of creating impact and driving social change. In conversation with journalist Christian von Essen, Paul reflects on the foundation’s strategy and vision, the wellsprings of hope that sustain him in challenging times, and his approach to making meaningful, lasting change in the world.

Listen to the full episode here: hejaframtiden.se/heja-framtiden-podcast-569-paul-alarcon

On November 20, our leadership joined public leaders, academics, and investors in London for a landmark occasion—the first-ever Apolitical Day. The event brought together a diverse community for a day of inspiring conversations, thought-provoking keynotes, and engaging simulations, all focused on reimagining political leadership and government for the 21st century.

As co-founders of the Apolitical Foundation and investors in Apolitical, we’ve been privileged to support this journey from the very start. Together, we’ve worked to build a non-partisan movement to revitalize political leadership, and in the case of Apolitical, foster 21st-century governments that serve both people and the planet. None of which would have been possible without the visionary leadership of Lisa Witter, Robyn Scott, and their outstanding teams.

Highlights of the day included discussions on the role of emerging technologies in government, reflections on public leadership, and Apolitical’s signature simulations. We were especially excited to celebrate the winners of the first-ever Political Leadership Impact Award—Elect Her and Recambio—for their exceptional contributions to the renewal of political leadership.

We are already looking forward to the next Apolitical Day and the continued evolution of this vital movement.

In the wake of the US Presidential election, Paul Alarcon and Daniel Sachs published an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s leading daily newspaper. In the piece, they urge established political parties to address voters’ demands for renewal by reimagining leadership, rebuilding trust between politicians and citizens, and developing policy programs grounded in strong ideological principles.

Read the full article here.

In a recent ed-op for POLITICO Europe, DSF founder Daniel Sachs emphasizes the need for mainstream political parties to embrace radical centrism instead of mimicking populist extremes. He shares three crucial takeaways that every centrist party should heed:

1. Desire for change, not extreme policies, fuels populism

The surge in nationalist populist parties across Europe is a cry for change, driven by widespread disillusionment with traditional politics. New polling reveals that voters are flocking to populist parties not out of conviction for their policies, but due to a deep-seated mistrust in established political parties.

2.Centrist parties must rethink their strategy

In a misguided attempt to reclaim voters, centrist parties risk a race to the bottom by imitating populist extremes. This strategy distracts from their true mission: crafting and promoting bold, ambitious centrist policies that resonate with the electorate’s real needs and aspirations.

3.Radical institutional renewal is crucial

The future of democratic politics depends on a radical centrist approach where parties from the center-left to the center-right earn back voter trust. Mainstream democratic parties must go beyond merely opposing extremist agendas. They need bold, fresh leadership and meaningful citizen dialogue to develop new ideas that address voters’ priorities, such as cost of living, healthcare, and economic opportunities.