Founded in 1980, the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) is a philanthropic organization dedicated to providing support for research and educational initiatives. The foundation provides grants to universities, think tanks, and other nonprofit organizations to support research projects, academic networking, and educational initiatives. Through these investments, the foundation aims to foster intellectual diversity, promote new educational pathways to career development, and support classical liberal principles and ideas.
The foundation’s efforts are dedicated to focus areas concerning the future of work and the promotion of the open exchange of ideas and information. The foundation provides grant funding to over 350 programs, spanning more than 200 organizations. The foundation is a member of the Stand Together philanthropic community.
CKF holds to four core values with regards to their academic giving standards.
- Faculty leadership: CKF supports proposals developed by scholars with their own visions. CKF believes that the freedom of these scholars to drive their research wherever it leads is essential to the discoveries that the foundation hopes will result from its support.
- The academic environment is the school: Every grant CKF provides adheres to the individual school's established procedures for hiring, curriculum development, peer review, and other relevant policies.
- Transparency leads to opportunity: To ensure potential grantees are aware of opportunities and to maximize public benefit, CKF shares news of all its major grants. This sharing of information aims to improve collaboration and offer others the chance to build upon the work of the scholars CKF supports.
- For the good of society: The foundation's philanthropic goal is to improve society. As the discoveries made by these scholars inform the way forward on issues such as criminal justice reform, free expression, foreign policy, technology and innovation, economic opportunity, and other critical challenges, society as a whole advances.
CKF also provides published access to the foundation’s major grant agreements.
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Major Grant Agreements
