The European Foundation for Quality Management (later to be renamed simply 'EFQM') was founded in 1988 by leaders from fourteen companies who were convinced that a new membership organisation, based in Europe, was necessary to promote higher standards of management through shared knowledge and mutual recognition.  Subsequently the mission and membership base of EFQM has been extended, as enthusiasm for its values and frameworks grew in the public sector, into small and medium sized enterprises, and to other organisations around the world.

EFQM and its members remain committed to the basis of our founding: to promote higher standards of management through shared learning among peers whether or not they are members of the foundation.  This mission extends beyond the borders of Europe, to wherever organisations are willing to open their doors to structured assessment and exchange.  

Today, EFQM’s membership base of 600 organisations actively exchanges experience on issues ranging from quality and risk management, to leadership and supplier development programmes.
We are working with our members to build new value added services that incorporate the experience of 20 years of assessment practices, such as:

• Using Mutual assessment as an accelerator for in-depth learning between organisations
• Offering accelerated leadership development programmes based on assessment assignments between companies 
• Inventing new practices such as strategy based assessment to conduct global assessments
• Exploring assessment with a much broader or non-traditional scope: for instance processes which extend beyond the border of the organisation (for example buyer-supplier relationships)
• Using Assessment to guide Post-merger integration

Timeline
Read more about how, and when, EFQM came into being and the developments that have built our foundation.