Vision and Purposes
The Christensen Fund crafts its grant making and other activities on the conviction that worldwide diversity – both cultural and biological – is hugely valuable and should be cared for. These diversities have evolved over vast time through both evolutionary and historical processes and human acts of creativity, adaptation and learning. The presence of these diversities is inherently resilient and enhances ability to adjust to the unexpected twists and turns of time and to the threats posed by globalization, nationalism and unsustainable development. Diversity is not only beautiful and meaningful, but also provides a storehouse of ideas, practice and knowledge and supports life forms and ecological processes. This key arena for our actions sustains and sharpens the Christensen Fund’s longstanding tradition of attention to conservation science, visual arts and education.
The Christensen Fund embraces the perspective that recognizes the interdependence of cultural and biological integrity and focuses its efforts on that component of diversity which has been recently coined as biocultural – namely the weave of humankind and nature, cultural pluralism and ecological integrity. Biocultural diversity arises from the continuing co-evolution and adaptation between the natural landscape, ways of life and cultural endeavors, producing a richness and variety that are indivisible. Examples would include a genetically unique heirloom apricot variety, maintained by millennia of selection and grafting; a Hopi corn dance that reflects and celebrates the deep understanding of the ecology of this crop; and a thriving savanna mosaic molded by long-standing indigenous fire management. The biocultural perspective is important because there are deep inter-linkages globally between ecological decline and cultural erosion; and because the prevailing view of human progress and the natural world as separate has resulted in disconnected, competing approaches and separated institutions to address these deeply coupled concerns. In working on this culture-environment interface we recognize that the human use of natural landscapes, indigenous and otherwise, is always culturally informed, and that cultures are, in turn, also shaped in part by the places in which they are rooted. We also acknowledge that cultural attitudes can at times drive the destruction of biodiversity and cultural heritage, just as they can in other circumstances prove its savior.
We share a vision with many others who seek an ecologically diverse world brimming with cultural expression and bountiful livelihoods. We particularly value diversity at the landscape level – where the land, air and water, wild and domesticated plants and animals, and ecosystem manifest a dynamic blend of natural forces and cultural and artistic expression. It is these temporal and spatial scales that can support and sustain deeper complexities. The links between culture and landscape are constantly in motion in response to social and ecological changes. The longevity of many local cultures and their landscapes in spite of repeated upheavals are evidence of robust and adaptable ecologies, values and logics, knowledge and practices. The tight integration and capacity for innovation inherent in these diverse systems renders them both profoundly functional and beautiful. The Fund values this beauty in both culture and nature beyond material value and system logic.
The Christensen Fund has chosen to focus its efforts on regions of the world that exemplify this resilience, harbor exceptional biocultural values, and possess the regenerative potential to survive the current erosion of the world’s diversity and seed its recovery. We believe that maintaining the rich diversity of these places could have a disproportionate impact on the long term viability and diversity of the world. These areas also typically attract very little interest from foundations and other international agencies. Our current regions – The African Rift Valley (focus Ethiopia), Central Asia and Turkey, Northern Australia, and the Greater American Southwest – span the globe’s continents. Yet their many commonalities enable rich cross-fertilization and mutual learning among peoples and institutions. By investing deeply in a few places rather than spreading our effort more broadly, we hope to make a real difference to them and to foster new institutions and alliances rather than simply support existing ones.
In our regions, the Christensen Fund emphasizes backing the indigenous and traditional stewards of their cultural and ecological heritages. Their landscapes are places with which they have formed enduring relationships to achieve their livelihood, cultural and spiritual goals. Our efforts typically seek to buttress these stewards, by which we mean to recognize, support and strengthen them, and help them to adapt where appropriate to new challenges. We deliberately choose to fund strategies to support the stewards rather than efforts to take over from them or to replace them. This focus is because indigenous and tribal peoples are often at the core of struggles to safeguard biocultural diversity and integrity, but receive negligible assistance from foundations in their efforts. Their homelands still harbor much of the world’s biodiversity and vibrant landscapes. While largely on the margins of the current global economy, many are also now subject to its competing cultural ideals, state policies and market institutions – some of which are unjust, dispossessing and environmentally destructive. Yet the partnerships we make with indigenous people are often not of a defensive nature. Rather, we frequently find ourselves supporting proactive strategies by local communities to fuse traditional ways with new knowledge to create richly diverse futures for their cultures and lands. But of course local actors cannot be expected to take on the world’s problems alone; The Christensen Fund therefore regularly engages with allies of these local stewards – including conservation scientists, scholars, artists and advocacy groups, based within and outside of our regions. Many grants therefore support indigenously-anchored partnerships between local people and dedicated outsiders, where these collaborations genuinely combine skills and knowledge, and create the kinds of local confidence, capacities and rights that ensure lasting impact. We also support education and training that draws on both local and external knowledge and experience.
Shaping a better future for the earth requires action and understanding at both global and local levels. Through our Global Biocultural and Bay Area programs, we fund international efforts to build understanding worldwide of the interdependence of cultural and ecological diversity and resilience, and around its conservation and management. The Christensen Fund believes there are no simple formulas for addressing these huge challenges, and operates on the principle that imagination, deep knowledge and a spirit of practical experimentation will be necessary to craft effective strategies. To this end we seek out partnerships with and opportunities to learn from a diversity of visionary and imaginative individuals and initiatives, including grantees, other funders, elders, mavericks, intellectuals, artists and professional and traditional associations. We also believe that to achieve lasting change on these fronts requires long-term investments and partnerships.
In short, through grantmaking in the four focal regions and the Global Biocultural Initiative and the San Francisco Bay Area Program the Fund seeks to strengthen the conditions for local custodians to care effectively for the landscapes and other biocultural heritage under their stewardship. To do so, the Fund employs a constellation of approaches that includes working at various scales – local to global; fostering the blending of various streams of knowledge and experience; keeping a focus on the complex interactions between cultures and places, especially in regard to indigenous peoples and the landscapes they control. As an institution we intend to add much more value than just our grant dollars. We do this through deploying our staff and other resources to build capacity and networks within and beyond our selected regions, to generate and share knowledge about the importance of biocultural diversity and how it can be sustained, to nurture collaborations with other funders and partners of all kinds, and in the future to make investments from our endowment that themselves enhance our mission. As we strive to achieve these changes in the world, we also seek to reflect these values within our organization by creating an institutional culture that values its people and its results, through achieving diversity, listening, professionalism, accountability, respect and innovation.
Overview and Governance
The Christensen Fund is a private independent foundation established in 1957 under the tax-exempt rules administered by the Internal Revenue Service, an agency of the United States Government. Headquartered in Palo Alto California, The Fund pursues its mission under the policy directions of a board of trustees and implemented through its Executive Director, assisted by program and administrative staff. The board of trustees provides overall governance and sets policies for the Fund. The current board includes experienced individuals familiar with conservation, the arts, education, community activism, finance, law and philanthropy. The foundation seeks a board that is culturally diverse, including persons with indigenous heritage.
Support for the Fund is provided through an endowment that is invested in a diversified portfolio in accordance with the Fund’s investment policy. The policy is designed to provide long-term total return and growth in assets and a stable income stream to meet the Fund’s financial obligations over time. As a foundation that supports local cultures and biological diversity in its grant-making, the Board of Trustees strives to achieve its financial objectives in harmony with ecological and social return (socially responsible investing). It is the intention of the Board of Trustees to invest a portion of the Fund’s assets directly towards mission-related investments – including enterprises owned and managed by indigenous peoples.
Core Values and Organizational Culture
The Fund seeks to develop administrative principles that are centered on the most effective ways to fulfill its mission and ensure high fidelity grant-making. The Fund aspires to distinguish itself through the quality of its grant-making, networking, and having great respect for local wisdom, vision and leadership. The Fund recognizes that the deep knowledge of our staff and the quality of our partnerships with people on the ground are key to the realization of our mission. The Fund believes that harnessing these resources is best achieved through observing core values: respect, diversity, learning, (traditional and scientific), interdependency, creativity and innovation. The Fund also believes its quality of grant-making in the regions in which it operates requires significant and competent administrative and programming capacity. This unswerving commitment serves yet another core value at the Fund—that of empowerment for grantees to build the necessary administrative capacities for positive, sustained change.
The Fund’s organizational strengths come from the quality and diversity of staff to deal effectively with many types of organizations, worldwide, from well-established and complex international organizations to modest, and often new, local and indigenous associations. The staff are diverse both in their cultural and organizational backgrounds, with several from the regions in which The Christensen Fund makes grants. The program staff are highly trained and experienced professionals in social sciences and landscape ecology. The administrative staff are professionals experienced in grant administration, financial management and human resource development.
The Grants Administration team works with the program staff to improve processes while adapting to the continuously changing foundation regulation environment. The team is committed to shielding grantees from the adverse impacts of uncertain and changing conditions, while ensuring that the Fund’s resources are used for its intended charitable purposes.
Because the Fund believes the ultimate success of our operations is determined by its grant-making, The Fund is keenly interested in learning from each and every grant made, as well as from how overall program strategies are actually making impact on the ground. Included in the Fund’s assessment is real interest in listening to our grantees and other stakeholders. This feedback loop is essential to a good delivery system in which to pursue the Fund’s complex mission.
