As we enter the fiscal year 2026, allow me to use this occasion to outline how we, the Toyota Foundation, will go about grant-making activities in this fiscal year.

To begin with, we will make grants totaling 485 million yen (or about 3 million USD), an 11.5% increase from the previous fiscal year. With this increased budget for grant money, we would like to offer greater support to various research projects that can generate extensive social significance.

The Toyota Foundation’s current grant framework covers the three Specific Subject programs focused on resolving specific issues -- Co-Creating New Society with Advanced Technologies, Migrants and Japanese Society, and Population Decline in Japanese Society -- and three Grant Programs aimed at realizing greater human happiness from a broader perspective – the Grant Program for Community Activities in Japan, the Research Grant Program, and the International Grant Program. One key concept common to all these grant programs is what we see as connection[NO1.1].

Why do we care about this key concept in our grant-making operations? It is because we believe a lot of challenges confronting people now at home and abroad are intertwined with the changes happening in connections between people, between people and nature, between people and goods, and between nations. 

In the past, Japanese people would often be united by closely-knit groups or organizations where they knew each other, be it family and relatives, neighborhood community associations, village communities, companies, labor unions, alumni associations, or faith-based groups. In other words, I would say that people existed as a part of the groups or organizations that they belonged to.

Today, however, individualistic values have gained ground, and people-to-people connections formed through such conventional groups or organizations are not necessarily working well. Coupled with the progress of economic activity, a large majority of people have come to live in urban areas, disconnected from one another, while fewer people have come to reside in sparsely-populated, rural regions. 

In the meantime, the exponential development of information technology (IT) has enabled people far afield to connect casually on the internet without personally knowing each other.

So far, our basic systems and customs in society have been developed and refined based on the existence of solid organizations and groups involving in-person interactions. But now, those things are failing to function properly in various sectors of society.

Compared with 50 years ago or so, when the Toyota Foundation was established, we can see signs of obvious changes in the ways people connect with each other.

Needless to say, such big changes are happening not just in Japan. Similar shifts can also be observed in other countries, albeit to varying degrees from country to country. While I will not go into details due to limited space here, people-to-goods and people-to-nature connections have changed considerably from 50 years ago.

Moreover, recent behaviors of leading nations clearly show that connections between countries that are premised on the existence of sovereign states are being transformed as well. 

By focusing on these connections, we can see changes taking place in broader frameworks both domestically and internationally. With that in mind, we, the Toyota Foundation, now look to make grants to a variety of projects aiming to contribute to greater human happiness in our immediate and concrete settings.

In this fiscal year, the overall structures and themes of the grant programs remain unchanged. Meanwhile, we are working proactively to conduct investigation and research in preparation for developing a next-generation grant program. The budget amount is doubled for the Initiative Program from the previous fiscal year. By fully leveraging this program, we intend to discover and make a grant to a pilot project that can develop into a theme for the next-generation program.

Furthermore, we will make greater PR efforts in order to inform more people about the contributions that the Toyota Foundation has been making to society. More specifically, we plan to hold this autumn what we tentatively call “Toyota Foundation’s Day,” an occasion aimed at bringing grant recipients together, offering them an opportunity to talk about their activities, research projects and outcomes, and promoting interactions among them. In addition to this undertaking, we hope to carry out an interesting initiative that can help the public know more about the Foundation’s activities in depth.

As for myself, I am willing to hold talks with well-known figures, experts, and grant recipients under the theme of “connection” -- the Foundation’s basic concept for grant-making -- and to have such conversations available in the form of online videos. Through these new attempts, I hope to communicate the Foundation’s initiatives to as many people as possible and to be able to enlist their support.

Your warm support and guidance will be highly appreciated in this fiscal year, too.

Thank you.