With a little bit of imagination, this step also becomes graphically evident: ZF's traditionally main product of the gear is now integrated in schematic, quadratic housing. For this to remain the case, ZF has repeatedly augmented the foundation's nominal capital. The ZF Art Foundation is now firmly established within the regional cultural landscape of Lake Constance.
The award was granted for the first time in 2001 as part of a competition. This engagement led to the idea of inaugurating a ZF Music Award for young pianists. The ZF Art Foundation has been supporting the International Piano Festival of Young Masters in Lindau since 1999. In the same year, the ZF Art Foundation began granting scholarships to artists from countries sharing the Lake Constance coastline. In 1996, funding was provided for the first special exhibition, entitled "The Art of Flying," in the newly designed Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. In the meantime, there are permanent sponsorship relationships with, for instance, the Art Association of Friedrichshafen, the "Kulturufer" cultural festival and the Weingarten International New Music Festival. This earned us a great deal of approval with the internal responsible parties in Schweinfurt."Īs of the mid-1990s, the foundation increasingly focused its activities on individual institutions and events. ZF, on the other hand, announced that it intended to integrate all four main divisions – powertrain, chassis technology, rubber-metal connections, and the spare parts business – to the fullest extent possible. At this point in time, there were multiple parties interested in an acquisition, but each wanted to assume only a portion of the traditional Sachs business.
Although the Sachs portfolio was a very good fit with that of ZF, we began with concrete negotiations at a relatively late stage. "Bosch and Siemens then proceeded to break up the conglomerate it had acquired. Siegfried Goll, Member of the ZF Board of Management since 1997, describes the situation as follows: After the Mannesmann Group was bought by Vodafone, Atecs Mannesmann AG was sold to a consortium managed by Siemens and Bosch. The entire industrial division of Mannesmann, including future ZF subsidiary Sachs, had been incorporated into Atecs Mannesmann AG already in 1999. The acquisition of the Mannesmann Group by British competitor Vodafone was sealed shortly before midnight on February 3, 2000. The ambitious goal: to finance 100 educational institutions in the poorest regions of the world. In the anniversary year of 2015, ZF launched the largest humanitarian relief project in the company's history: the "100 Years – 100 Schools" campaign in cooperation with UNESCO. As many colleagues were also impacted, the generosity of the workforce reached a record level: EUR 750,000 was compiled by the association an additional EUR 250,000 was supplemented by the Group. 2013 was dominated by support for victims of flooding at the ZF Passau location. In 2012, EUR 415,000 was collected for projects in Chad and Kenya. In 2011, the association donated EUR 100,000 for the victims of the earthquake and reactor catastrophe in Japan. In 2010, for instance, "ZF hilft." made EUR 350,000 available for microloans to women in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh so that they could set up an economically independent existence. Under the banner of "Help for Self-Help," several projects were realized over the subsequent period. This is why I always enjoyed working here."
We invest in the future, even if its success cannot immediately be measured in terms of profit. For me, the Wissenswerkstatt is, at the same time, a good example of the long-term thinking that characterizes ZF. The approach was so successful that we have gradually introduced it to other locations in Germany – Passau, Schweinfurt, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Diepholz and Saarbrücken. This guaranteed funding for the next ten years. ZF subsidized the not insignificant costs with a grant of EUR 2 million. To realize this, we designed a 450 square-meter learning workshop, which had approximately 4,000 young visitors per year. "Our idea was to spark, in children and young people – in particular also girls, an early interest in technology. Peter Köpf, Head of Development at the ZF Group at the time, explains the approach: The Wissenswerkstatt (Knowledge Workshop) association was inaugurated in Friedrichshafen early in 2009 and advocates learning already in childhood.
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