Stephan Wilcke

Why I’m helping to build UWC’s Financial Future

I was a teenager from Cold War West Germany when I arrived at UWC Atlantic College on a scholarship. I still remember watching the fall of the Berlin Wall on a grainy TV in the castle common room. That moment, seeing history shift in real time, captured what UWC is all about: breaking down barriers, building understanding and believing that young people can help shape a better world.

Without that scholarship, I wouldn’t have been there. UWC Atlantic changed my life. It gave me a global perspective, a sense of purpose and lifelong friendships that still anchor me today. It’s also where I first learned that service isn’t something you do “later” - it’s something you live daily.

That ethos has stayed with me. It led me to become a student counsellor at university, to step into public service during the global financial crisis, when I led the UK’s asset resolution agency managing bad bank debts, and more recently, to support a charity for women leaving prison.

Today, after a career in finance, I’ve come full circle. I chair the UWC Endowment Project—a long-term effort to secure the financial foundation of our movement, especially scholarships. For me, that’s at the absolute core of what UWC is about: selecting students for who they are and what they stand for, not what their families can afford.

Many people see financial services as cold or driven by greed. But without a functioning financial system, we’d be back to bartering and there’d be no welfare state or social safety net. Similarly, UWC needs strong financial underpinnings to deliver on its bold mission, generation after generation.

That’s why endowments matter. They are tried-and-tested tools used by leading schools and universities to fund scholarships, programmes, and innovation. year after year, forever. At UWC, and especially Atlantic College, we have the history, the alumni and the mission to make this work.

When someone donates a meaningful amount, during their lifetime or through legacy giving, they want to know it will be looked after, invested wisely and used to support the causes they care about in perpetuity. That’s exactly what the UWC Endowment is here to do.

I want to make sure that 30, 50, even 100 years from now, young people from every background still have the chance to experience what I did at Atlantic College - because looking at the world today, I believe we need UWC more than ever.