Onassis Foundation

Onassis Foundation is a world-class and multi-venue ecosystem of interconnected enterprises, units and initiatives with a wide and ever-evolving spectrum of human and material resources and an extended network of partners.

The Onassis Foundation has since its inception supported Greek society through the pillars of Culture, Education and Health. It was established in 1975 in accordance with Aristotle Onassis’ last wish to honor the memory of his son, Alexander. All the programs and initiatives of the Foundation are since then financed by its successful business activity.

Activities: The Onassis Foundation has granted more than 7,000 scholarships and research fellowships for post-graduate and doctorate studies; it has offered financial assistance to universities with Greek chairs, departments or programs around the world; it has established a long tradition of providing educational material and technological equipment for hundreds of Greek schools all over Greece and has unfailingly supported Special Education; it has acquired the Cavafy Archive (more than 4,600 manuscripts and personal items of the poet) to ensure its openness and accessibility to researchers and the wider public; its great book collections are housed in The Onassis Library; it completed and donated to the Greek State the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in 1992; it established an Affiliate Foundation and Cultural Center in New York in 1999; it created Stegi (Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens) in 2010; a major new donation in the field of health is the Onassis National Transplant Center, announced in 2018.

The Onassis Foundation is housed in a neoclassical building in the center of Athens, Greece, where The Onassis Library and Cavafy Archive are also based. Its Cultural Center (Onassis Stegi) is a multi-disciplinary venue in Athens with an 880-seat theater, a 220-seat theater, lecture and exhibition halls, as well as a number of open spaces and a bar, café, and restaurant. Additional venues include a makerspace and other office buildings in the metropolitan area. The affiliate foundation operates in the US with offices in New York’s Olympic Tower. Together, they present a variety of performances, talks, exhibitions, residencies, and touring productions, both in their home communities and around the world.

Within the framework of its public benefit activity, the Onassis Foundation responds to the needs for urban revival by supporting public institutions of major importance, such as the National Theatre of Greece and by proposing and organizing initiatives and projects to improve the quality of everyday life for the citizens. Additionally, artistic initiatives, such as the Fast Forward Festival-Athens, a yearly site-specific and socially-sensitive project with commissions, international co-productions and world premieres that connects people, institutions and ideas in the center and the periphery of the city.