What We Fund

Since its establishment in 1991, the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation has made over 850 grants totaling approximately 170 million dollars.

The urgency of dealing with unsustainable consumption, the climate crisis, and their consequential impacts to our natural systems are the overall themes for the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. Most recently, the foundation has worked on toolboxes for exploring and working with the complex and dynamic processes involved in many societal and natural systems simultaneously reaching irreversible tipping points.

We work primarily on international-level issues. When they support international learning tools and resources for meaningful action, we engage with a few national and place-based local projects.

We favor projects that:

• consider all life equally important

• use a systems approach to address root causes and achieve change

• take stock of and tell the truth about the scale, complexity, and urgency of dealing with environmental problems

• are based on original thinking, creative ideas, and experimentation

• alter power dynamics related to decision-making and influence

• have international significance and perspective, even if they are locally based

Our typical grantees are innovative non-profit organizations with demonstrated leadership in developing specialized strategies, communicating their vision, and effective project performance. 

In the last four years, the foundation has been engaged in the following program area:

Cultural Resilience and Global Leadership under the Conditions of Environmental Breakdown

• Development of systems-level responses to ecological, economic, and social stresses/destabilization/collapse

• Furtherance of research related to our psychological and social capacities for dealing with serious climate change, tipping points, and the collapse of natural systems

• Exploration of sociocultural transformations and strategic planning frameworks that can enhance mitigation under the conditions of environmental breakdown

• Development of leadership tools and practices that can be widely and rapidly adopted under the conditions of environmental breakdown.

Nature’s Inherent Value

Over the last couple years, the foundation has been focusing on the mounting awareness of the interconnectedness of all life and the need for new ethical frameworks that can address the shortcomings of anthropocentrism and the ongoing exploitation of, control over, and damage to, our natural systems. With this effort, the foundation would like to inspire and inform a nature-centric worldview that could lead to new models of cooperation, co-existence, and resilience. The second call for proposals within this new program area is focused on nature-centrism as a lens for organizational behavior and decision-making. See the Spring 2025 - Open Call for Proposal.

What We Do Not Fund

The V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation does not fund:

• For-profit organizations

• Organizations without U.S. IRS 501(c)(3) charitable certification or equivalency if international (fiscal sponsors with certification can be used)

• Core funding of NGOs

• Candidates for political office

• Conservation projects focused on a single species

• Government organizations

• Individual scholarships or other individual support

• Medical research

• Health care

• Organizations whose job it is to re-grant funding received

• Capital construction or endowment campaigns

• Benefits or annual fund-raising campaigns