Realm Providence Fund
Rijks Voorzienigheid Fonds | |
| Abbreviation | RVF |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1821 |
| Founder | Willem III |
| Type | Private foundation |
| Purpose | Tackling poverty within the Vistari Keizerrijk and providing access to basic services to the impoverished. |
| Headquarters | Vierbak, Verteken, Vistaraland |
Area served | Vistara Commonwealth; primarily Vistaraland |
| Owner |  See of Supremacy |
Key people |
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| Endowment (2022) | over $40 billion |
Employees | approx. 1,700 |
The Realm Providence Fund (Vistarian: Rijks Voorzienigheid Fonds, RVF) is a Vistari private foundation and the nation's wealthiest non-profit organisation, as well as one of the wealthiest charitable foundations globally. Aiming to tackle poverty and ensure access to basic services throughout the Vistari Keizerrijk and wider Vistara Commonwealth, the Fund receives a vast majority of the See of Supremacy's wealth allocated for philanthropic efforts, with an endowment currently totalling over $40 billion.
The Fund was founded by Emperor Willem III in 1821, and has served as the primary vehicle for the Vistari monarchy to engage in social spending, alongside donations to organizations coordinating international aid and medical research. Historically, its status has been viewed by the public as one of the three arms of social services in the country, alongside the charitable efforts of the Church of St. Arend and the provisions for poor relief offered by the Vistari state. Though its status has declined from the 19th Century due to increases in national welfare spending in Vistaraland, the Fund has retained its place as a vital lifeline for those in poverty or experiencing material deprivation.
Despite praise for the service it provides, the organisation has been criticised for causing many to rely on the wealth and generosity of the See of Supremacy as a substitute for the inadequacies within the system of welfare in Vistaraland. Despite considerable progress in the Vistari Welfare system from its origins in the Jobless Restructuring Acts, the Vistari government does not engage in financial assistance welfare at the federal level, causing a need for support from charity to cover the costs of mandatory health insurance and basic necessities not covered by the state in some regions.
History
The organisation was founded by Imperial Charter on 14 April 1821, signed by Emperor Willem III. Emperor Willem, who reigned as the third elected monarch of the Ducal Federation between 1818 and 1833, oversaw a period of doubt in the elective system due to the widespread unpopularity of his predecessor, Leopold I. Being from the wealthiest noble family in Vistaraland, the House of Nyvera, Willem sought to use the considerable estates allocated to his family and the See of Supremacy to restore confidence in the throne. The Realm Providence Fund formed as a key way in which to secure public support, providing outdoor relief for the betterment of the lives of the impoverished and to allow them a pathway back into employment in the emerging industrial cities.
The early years of the organisation saw its leaders primarily form liturgical backgrounds within the Church of St. Arend, with the Church having historically argued for the expansion of welfare as a form of paternalism. The first appointed Director of the organisation, pastor Lourens Aalvink, saw the work as a way for Vierists to bring about “proper moral conditioning” for those who did not already participate in the Church. Aalvink cited unemployment for the emergence of nonconformist beliefs, and believed that the See of Supremacy could improve the nature of the lower classes by getting them into work.
Though there has not been any strong evidence that conversions increased following the program’s introduction, access to relief through the RVF was successful at garnering support and decreasing crime in many places. Though at the time both were accredited to the bringing of morality through work amongst the poor, historians today primarily associate the trend with decreasing poverty, which necessitated criminal activity. During continued industrialization, the RVF worked alongside the Church to support the large number of labourers who suffered injury or illness due to poor working conditions, allowing families to manage through periods of unemployment and suppressing working class agitation.
In the 1880s, RVF offices would be founded in the United Dominions of Valerijk and the Dominion of Vorpest, expanding the service to colonies, primarily serving Vistari settlers not provided for by the Church. At this time, the organisation’s rhetoric would begin to shift, with Director Andries Elhorst - a former colonial administrator, arguing that it served as a marker of the Crown’s ability to protect and provide for colonial subjects and the strength of the Empire as a whole unit. Such a doctrine would allow the RVF to continue expanding until the Great War, in which internal conflict would emerge and funds would become necessary to allocate to the war effort instead.
During the War of Imperial Succession, the RVF would be split on factional lines. Tyrene van Molebaai, due to her claims on the throne, assigned a loyal friend and Gilatist, Coen Stoltenborg, to the position of interim Director. Stoltenborg would begin the run the organisation in Molebaai-loyal areas in Southern Vistaraland, whilst the RVF in Verteken would be dissolved in the Sereena-loyal north both to concentrate funds on the war effort and concentrate welfare in the Vierist Church. Due to the conflict on the Mainland, the Vistari Colonial Government - formed in 1910 as an alliance of Molebaai-alligned colonial governments, would consolidate and expand the overseas branches of the RVF into a government-funded institution. This served to, alongside the colonial militaries and overseas security forces, curtail colonial unrest and allow a majority of colonies to be peacefully reincorporated into the Vistari Keizeriijk in 1926.
Following the war, the RVF would be reinstated as a singular, unified organisation with an expanded scope overseas. It would primarily focus on victims of the war and those affected by post-war unemployment for the ensuing years, working alongside other charitable organisations and state efforts to rebuild the ailing Empire. While nominally successful, the post-war economic slump would eventually see the RVF’s role supplanted in a number of areas by the national, colonial and provincial governments - with the organisation’s role declining through the 1930s and 1940s.
By the 1950s, the RVF would take its decreased need at home as a mandate to provide assistance across the Vistara Commonwealth, with considerable efforts being placed into providing welfare to Twelijnland in recent decades. In 2012, prominent celebrity and founder of the North Gondwana Foundation for Cholera Prevention Eimiel Martser was given the position of Director, pushing the organisation to focus more on the most deprived areas of the Empire through coordinating relief.
Activities
Though its role in providing core welfare has declined throughout the 20th Century, the RVF remain one of the largest providers of financial welfare aid in the Vistara Commonwealth, and continue a long-standing policy direction of assisting impoverished citizens both gain access to basic needs such as food, clean water and housing, as well as a pathway to employment. This is primarily achieved through working with the state and corporations in order to place individuals without a livelihood in a position to fill shortages in unskilled labour positions while supporting those workers in training, transport and paying for accommodation so they are able to begin earning money themselves.
In addition to their activity in creating access to employment, the RVF also creates paid work in places such as homeless shelters and food banks by subsidising their creation in areas which require them and subsidising their continued operation alongside state funds and public donations.
Financials
The Realm Providence Fund primarily constitutes an endowment allocated to it by the See of Supremacy directly, as a sovereign subject of international law. Due to the history of the Vistari monarchy in relation to the Vistari state, the institution retains a considerable amount of land under private estates across the Vistara Commonwealth, as well as investment into key industries. These estates coexist with the estates of the House of Molebaai, the noble house which has been elected to hold the position since 1926. As such, the Vistari royal family is one of the wealthiest on Urth, and able to place a considerable portion of that wealth into the RVF and other philanthropic efforts without taxation or oversight from the Vistari government.
The endowment granted by the See of Supremacy is additionally supported by voluntary contributions by other figures of Vistari nobility, with the organisation historically taking large contributions from the Houses of Sereena, Nyvera, Tusi and Haasbai as a way in which to consolidate philanthropic efforts towards Commonwealth citizens. In the present day, though dwarfed by the Vistari crown’s contribution, the House of Nyvera is the second largest contributor to the RVF, primarily through funds acquired by INTCO. In 2022, estimates of the organisation’s endowment reached over 40 billion SHD, making it one of the wealthies charitable foundations globally.