History & Values
The RAJA-Danièle Marcovici Foundation, a pioneer of French philanthropy for women’s empowerment and women’s rights.
A conviction
My commitment to women’s rights is rooted both in a personal history and in an entrepreneurial journey.
It is first and foremost personal: it stems from my long-standing feminist engagement, particularly in the 1970s, when I campaigned for the right to abortion in France.
It is also entrepreneurial. My mother, Rachel, founded Cartons RAJA in 1954, at a time when women entrepreneurship was rare and largely undervalued.
I grew up alongside this female leader, guided by her deep conviction that women possess talent, skills, and real agency. This legacy has shaped my own vision of commitment and responsibility.
The company as a lever for emancipation
I joined the company in 1962, at the age of just 16. It was through direct contact with customers that I discovered the fundamentals of commerce, a hands-on learning experience that had a profound impact on me. Twenty years later, in 1982, I took over the management of Cartons RAJA. With the desire to give the company a new dynamic, I renamed it RAJA and embarked on a process of diversification and internationalization.
At the head of the Group, I wanted to promote a strong conviction: professional equality must be at the heart of collective success. I made this requirement a priority, fighting against sexism, encouraging the emergence of female talent, and opening up opportunities to all those who wish to build their future.
A Foundation dedicated to women’s rights
I wanted to go further: to give a new dimension to this commitment by creating a foundation dedicated to women’s empowerment and rights. In 2006, I founded the RAJA-Danièle Marcovici Foundation, driven by a deep conviction that businesses have a responsibility—and the power—to contribute to social change.
With the support of the RAJA Group and its partners, the Foundation works every day, in France and around the world, to offer women the opportunity to assert themselves, make choices, and transform their destinies.
20 years of commitment in the field
Since 2006, we have supported more than 1,000 projects, in France and internationally, alongside associations and women and men who are working for the emancipation of women and girls.
We began with 9 projects in 5 countries and a budget of 150,000 euros. Twenty years later, the Foundation supports each year more than one hundred projects in nearly fifty countries, with a financial commitment that exceeds 2 million euros annually.
But beyond the growth of our resources, it is the consistency of our commitment that is our strength.
Over the years, we have structured and expanded our areas of action: the fight against violence against women, access to education and training, professional integration and economic independence, health and sexual and reproductive rights, as well as women’s actions for the environment.
We have also chosen to innovate and to go further. By strengthening our support for advocacy to change laws and mindsets. By launching a program dedicated to the link between women and the environment. By creating an emergency fund to act quickly when humanitarian, political, or social crises suddenly threaten women’s rights.
Thanks to our experience and to trusted partnerships, we act where needs are most urgent, as close as possible to daily realities. We adapt our methods of support to respond to new challenges, convinced that philanthropic effectiveness is based on listening, trust, and loyalty to the associations committed in the field.
Thank you to the associations working in the field
None of this would be possible without the associations working on the ground, the true heroes and heroines of everyday life. Their energy, determination, and courage change lives.
Together, we share a conviction: equality between women and men is not a utopia, but a horizon that we have the power to build. Let us continue, step by step, to make this dream a universal reality.
