A year ago, we launched Fundação Mendes Gonçalves with a simple but ambitious conviction from its founder: that regeneration must begin locally, through relationships, knowledge, and long-term commitment to communities and territories. Looking back at our first year, I believe what we have built is not only a foundation, but a platform for collective action rooted in care, responsibility, and the courage to think differently about the future.
This spirit shaped Regenerar 2026, the forum we hosted in Golegã to mark the Foundation’s first anniversary. More than a commemorative moment, the gathering was designed as a call to action: a space to place regeneration at the centre of public debate and to mobilise organisations, institutions, researchers, practitioners and citizens around a shared responsibility for the future of our territories.
Bringing together 250 people along with international voices such as soil health expert Ray Archuleta and Maddalena Tedeschi from Reggio Children, the forum crossed disciplines and perspectives, connecting agriculture, education, food systems, health, culture and territorial development. What emerged throughout the day was a growing recognition that regeneration is not a niche concept or a technical exercise. It is a structural shift in how we understand the systems that sustain life, communities and democracy itself.
Our first activity report reflects this same ambition translated into practice. The past year was, above all, a period of listening, learning, and building. We invested in creating partnerships, strengthening local ecosystems, advancing projects connected to food literacy, regenerative agriculture and education, while also laying the foundations for long-term impact structures capable of supporting territorial transformation. The report demonstrates that meaningful change requires patient work: building trust, connecting actors that do not usually collaborate, and creating conditions for innovation rooted in local realities.
One of the most important moments of Regenerar 2026 was the launch of “Inspiring Futures”, our Declaration for Regeneration. More than an institutional document, it represents a public commitment and an invitation for others to join a broader movement centered around care. Care is both a verb of the present and of the future. Caring for what grows. Caring for what nourishes. Caring for what connects. Caring for what can flourish.
The declaration affirms our ambition to help shape new ways of thinking about territory, food systems, education and communities through to 2028.
The commitments we outlined are intentionally concrete. They include contributing to a quality educational ecosystem from early childhood onwards, promoting food literacy and nutritional equity, disseminating regenerative agriculture practices grounded in scientific evidence, and preparing an impact investment support fund capable of accelerating projects aligned with regenerative transitions. At its core, the declaration recognises that regeneration is not only about repairing what is damaged. It is about renewing relationships, restoring possibilities and creating resilient futures through collaboration and shared responsibility.
For us, regeneration also means understanding that local action gains strength through international exchange with other community foundations in Europe. This is why hosting the first exchange of the Peer-to-Peer Exchanges project, supported by the European Community Foundation Initiative (ECFI), was particularly meaningful during this anniversary moment. Welcoming Fundação Narciso Ferreira and Fundació Comunitària Raimat Lleida to Golegã marked the beginning of a shared journey of learning, reflection and co-creation among organisations that, while rooted in different contexts, are united by a common belief in the transformative power of place-based philanthropy.
These exchanges matter because the challenges we face, from climate resilience to democratic participation and social cohesion, cannot be addressed in isolation. Community foundations create spaces where territories learn from one another, adapt ideas to local realities and strengthen a shared European ecosystem grounded in proximity, participation and trust.
As we move forward, we do so with determination and a learning approach at our core. The first year of Fundação Mendes Gonçalves confirmed something essential: regeneration only becomes possible when it is collective. No organisation can achieve it alone. But when communities, institutions, farmers, educators, foundations and citizens work together around a shared vision, regeneration stops being an abstract aspiration and becomes a practical pathway towards more resilient and hopeful futures.
