Global Philanthropist of the Year 2025

Fingo, the organiser of World Village Festival, will award the Global Philanthropist of the Year prize for the fifth time. The award is given to a person whose actions have been remarkable, selfless and actively improving the world.

This year’s award focuses on peace. The recipient is a person who has made an effort to promote peace in Finland or elsewhere in the world.

The jury consists of peace educator Hanna Niittymäki, Paco Diop, who won an honourable mention in last year’s Vuoden maailmanparantaja Prize and Karun Verma, photographer and winner of last year’s Finnish Youth Peace Prize of Finnish YMCA. The jury will be chaired by Anni Valtonen, editor-in-chief of World’s Pictorial Magazine. The amount of the prize is €1 000.

Previous prizes have been awarded to Abilis Foundation that advances the rights of people with disabilities (2021), researcher and animal philosopher Elisa Aaltola (2022), Antti Komulainen and Eva Forssén, who work with the hearing impaired through their FSE (Finnish Special Education in Africa) organisation in Arusha, Tanzania (2023) and Marjo Grönvall-Jokela, a science teacher at Oriveden yhteiskoulu (2024).

Nominations can be made by anyone using this form until 30 April.

“We live in unstable times, and many people may feel that the ordinary person has no influence on world events. With this award, we want to remind you that even great changes are driven by active individuals. They deserve recognition.”

– Salla Peltonen, Communications Director, Fingo

“There are many different kinds of actions that contribute to peace: the honoree may seek solutions to conflicts around the world, but peace work is also about promoting democracy or even finding peaceful solutions to conflicts in one’s own community.”

– Anni Valtonen, Editor-in-Chief, World Pictorial Magazine