Our mission is to improve quality of life for the common good through the built environment. We strive to create value through development and change, dialogue and knowledge, partnerships and networks and by taking initiatives and being proactive.

Our history
Realdania grew out of a mortgage credit association, and for more than 150 years our purpose was to secure home loans for ordinary home owners. When our mortgage credit activities were sold off in 2000 in a merger, it was decided to secure the worth of the company capital in a philanthropic association to ensure that future generations can also benefit from the money through improvement and development of the built environment.

Our approach
We not only allocate funds but also share our expertise and network. Since Realdania was founded in 2000, we have funded or co-funded more than 2,000 projects of which 700 are currently active. This provides a large knowledge base, which offers a good starting point for any project that is approved for funding. We carry out strategic philanthropic work, where the dissemination of knowledge is considered at least as important as the physical project. By granting what we call “smart money”, we make sure that the experiences acquired in the projects will benefit others working with the built environment and thus society at large. 

We invest
In order to secure Realdania’s long-term ability to make significant grants, our investment department manages a mix of commercial and philanthropic investments. We take a diversified investment approach across various classes of assets to ensure stable returns and manage the assets appropriately, so that their true value is preserved in the long run.

Key figures
At the end of 2011 Realdania’s net capital amounted to approx. EUR 2.1 billion. In 2011 Realdania made grants of approx. EUR 160 million. Over the past 11 years we have supported philanthropic initiatives with a total project value of approximately EUR 3,0 billion. Of this amount, Realdania has provided EUR 1.4 billion, while the other part has been provided by other project partners.