Foundations
Here's a look at documents from U.S. foundations
Featured Stories
New Giving Circle Awards $16,000 to Support LGBTQ+ Community
DENVER, Colorado, Dec. 3 -- The Denver Foundation issued the following news:
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New giving circle awards $16,000 to support LGBTQ+ community
LGBTQ+ Giving Circle, Colorado's first giving circle supporting organizations and causes that impact LGBTQ+ communities in Colorado, awarded a total of $16,000 in grants to eight organizations in its first year.
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It's been the honor of a lifetime to gather with passionate people in our community, pool our resources, and decide how we want to help support organizations that make a difference for LGBTQ people across the state.
- Sean Kenney, co-chair
... Show Full Article
DENVER, Colorado, Dec. 3 -- The Denver Foundation issued the following news:
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New giving circle awards $16,000 to support LGBTQ+ community
LGBTQ+ Giving Circle, Colorado's first giving circle supporting organizations and causes that impact LGBTQ+ communities in Colorado, awarded a total of $16,000 in grants to eight organizations in its first year.
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It's been the honor of a lifetime to gather with passionate people in our community, pool our resources, and decide how we want to help support organizations that make a difference for LGBTQ people across the state.
- Sean Kenney, co-chairand trustee at The Denver Foundation.
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Grantees include:
* Rouge Support Network
* Ignacio Out and Equal Alliance
* Youth Seen
* Fortaleza Familiar
* Four Corners Rainbow Youth Center
* Mountain Pride
* Trans Continental Pipeline
* Transformative Freedom Fund
Since launching earlier this year, LGBTQ+ Giving Circle has already grown to 44 members and together they've raised more than $38,000.
The circle is made up of community members who are passionate about understanding and responding to the needs of LGBTQ+ communities, including those that are most marginalized and under-resourced. They give collectively by pooling their resources to support efforts, big and small, to create positive change.
"It's been the honor of a lifetime to gather with passionate people in our community, pool our resources, and decide how we want to help support organizations that make a difference for LGBTQ people across the state" said Sean Kenney, co-chair of the group and trustee at The Denver Foundation.
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Original text here: https://denverfoundation.org/2025/12/lgbtq-giving-circle-grant-awards/
Crash Course Series Promotes Religious Literacy in a Changing America
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida, Dec. 3 -- The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations issued the following news:
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Crash Course Series Promotes Religious Literacy in a Changing America
In his 1966 book, Religion in Secular Society, British sociologist Bryan Wilson predicted the that "displacement of religious views by secular ones" within industrialized societies, would produce thoroughly secular societies. Yet findings from the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/) conducted by the Pew Research
... Show Full Article
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida, Dec. 3 -- The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations issued the following news:
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Crash Course Series Promotes Religious Literacy in a Changing America
In his 1966 book, Religion in Secular Society, British sociologist Bryan Wilson predicted the that "displacement of religious views by secular ones" within industrialized societies, would produce thoroughly secular societies. Yet findings from the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/) conducted by the Pew ResearchCenter reveal both continuity and transformation in spiritual life, at least within the United States. While the decline of Christianity appears to have slowed, survey results underscore the enduring importance of spirituality: 86% of respondents affirm belief in a soul or spirit distinct from the physical body, 83% profess belief in God or a universal spirit, and 70% believe in heaven, hell, or both. These findings suggest that--even amid shifting religious identities--spiritual frameworks continue to shape how Americans make meaning of the world.
Despite this broad spiritual orientation, Americans demonstrate limited knowledge about the world's religions. A 2019 Pew survey of nearly 11,000 respondents revealed that, on average, adults could correctly answer only half of 32 basic questions about religious traditions. Just 9% answered more than three-quarters correctly, and fewer than 1% achieved a perfect score. These results illustrate a striking gap between Americans' spiritual interest and their understanding of diverse religious traditions.
This knowledge gap carries serious implications. Misunderstandings or stereotypes about unfamiliar traditions often fuel anti-Muslim bias, antisemitism, and other forms of religious discrimination. In contrast, greater familiarity with the beliefs and practices of others has the potential to strengthen empathy, reduce hostility, and foster a more inclusive civic culture.
As a result, AVDF has prioritized efforts to expand religious literacy as a pathway toward social cohesion and stable democracy. In 2023, for example, AVDF joined with the Pew Charitable Trusts to fund the PBS Foundation in developing a groundbreaking series on world religions for the widely popular YouTube channel Crash Course. This initiative reflects AVDF's strategy to use accessible and high-quality digital platforms to expand understanding of faith traditions.
The 25-episode series places special emphasis on traditions that rarely receive coverage in English-language media, such as Taoism, Jainism, Shinto, and the Latter-day Saint movement, while also addressing central traditions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
Crash Course has become one of YouTube's premier educational channels, with more than 16 million subscribers and over 200 million annual views. Hosted by bestselling author and Crash Course co-founder John Green, the World Religions series introduces audiences to fundamental questions and themes. Episodes such as "What Even Is a Religion?" and "How Many Religions Are There?" confront the challenges of defining religion, highlight the limitations of focusing on only the "big five" traditions, and encourage viewers to consider thematic questions such as cosmology, scripture, ritual, and morality.
Importantly, PBS recruited an advisory board of distinguished scholars representing diverse traditions--including African diasporic religions and the major world faiths--to ensure academic rigor and accuracy. Their contributions shaped the curriculum, reviewed scripts, and advised on framing, ensuring that the series reflects contemporary scholarship while remaining accessible to general audiences.
The outcomes of the project have exceeded expectations. To date, the 25 episodes have collectively earned more than 4.4 million views and 475,000 hours of watch time--well above initial targets. Viewer engagement, measured through comments and shares across platforms, reflects both the demand for and responsiveness to accessible, high-quality content on religion.
"We are pleased to report that the Crash Course World Religions series has significantly exceeded its goals. In our judgment, this has been one of the most successful projects AVDF has supported in our Interfaith Leadership and Religious Literacy portfolio," said John Churchill, AVDF Vice President of Grants and Programs. "By combining rigorous scholarship, creative storytelling, and the wide reach of digital media, the series has helped millions of viewers deepen their understanding of the world's diverse faith traditions."
This success demonstrates more than strong audience numbers--it highlights the broader societal value of religious literacy. By making accurate, engaging, and academically informed content freely available to millions, the series equips students, educators, and lifelong learners with tools to better understand both their own traditions and those of others. In a time when misinformation and intolerance threaten civic life, initiatives like this underscore how religious literacy fosters empathy, reduces prejudice, and strengthens the social fabric.
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Original text here: https://www.avdf.org/news/crash-course-series-promotes-religious-literacy-in-a-changing-america/
Theatre's 'Timid Libertarian'
DETROIT, Michigan, Dec. 2 -- The Foundation for Economic Education posted the following news:
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Theatre's 'Timid Libertarian'
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Tom Stoppard, RIP.
Tom Stoppard died on Saturday, November 29th, at 88. Some would call him a scholar's playwright, due to his allusions and philosophical meditations. When my friend Pedro Sette-Camara introduced me to his work, I was pursuing graduate studies in New York. The Coast of Utopia was premiering at Lincoln Center, and I couldn't find an affordable ticket to see it. Instead, I read his trilogy in book format.
Partially because of my studies in political
... Show Full Article
DETROIT, Michigan, Dec. 2 -- The Foundation for Economic Education posted the following news:
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Theatre's 'Timid Libertarian'
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Tom Stoppard, RIP.
Tom Stoppard died on Saturday, November 29th, at 88. Some would call him a scholar's playwright, due to his allusions and philosophical meditations. When my friend Pedro Sette-Camara introduced me to his work, I was pursuing graduate studies in New York. The Coast of Utopia was premiering at Lincoln Center, and I couldn't find an affordable ticket to see it. Instead, I read his trilogy in book format.
Partially because of my studies in politicalphilosophy at the time, I started to see in his work the themes related to human freedom and human knowledge, as well as the forces that threaten them.
The Coast of Utopia is, in many ways, a dramatic rendering of Isaiah Berlin's Russian Thinkers, a collection of essays on Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, Vissarion Belinsky, and Ivan Turgenev that constitutes a meditation on the birth of the Russian intelligentsia. I was reading Berlin at the time I read Stoppard, and I found in his writing Berlin's intellectual history made flesh. Later I saw that Stoppard acknowledged his debt explicitly : "Isaiah Berlin is an author without whom I could not have written these plays."
What Stoppard found in Isaiah Berlin was a framework for understanding freedom that cut against the grain of revolutionary idealism. Berlin drew a famous distinction between negative and positive liberty: freedom from interference versus freedom to achieve some higher self or collective goal. In The Coast of Utopia, Bakunin dreams of a freedom that will arrive after the revolution, when the old order has been swept away and humanity can finally become what it was always meant to be. Herzen, by contrast, insists on freedom as it can be lived now, in the present, by actual people with their actual desires and limitations.
Stoppard saw that the concept of positive liberty, however noble in aspiration, can be twisted into its opposite. If true freedom means realizing your "higher" self, then those who claim to know what your higher self requires can justify coercing you in the name of liberation. The revolutionary who forces you to be free speaks as if he is liberating while conscripting you into someone else's vision of the good. Berlin saw this logic at work in Soviet communism, in fascism, in every system that sacrificed present human beings for the sake of an imagined future perfection.
As Stoppard later put it, "positive freedom in the USSR meant empty shops, rubbish goods and rubbish lives for millions, but that was not the point for me, that was not the dystopia. The horror was the loss of personal responsibility, of personal space in the head, the loss of autonomy, of the freedom to move freely, and the ultimate Orwellian nightmare which is not to know what you have lost."
Herzen's From the Other Shore, written after the crushing of the 1848 revolutions, gave Berlin and Stoppard the language to articulate this critique. "If progress is the goal," Herzen asked, "for whom are we working? Do you truly wish to condemn the human beings alive today to the sad role of caryatids supporting a floor for others some day to dance on?" The one thing we can be sure of is the reality of the sacrifice, the dying and the dead.
"Life's bounty is in its flow," wrote Stoppard through Herzen's mouth. "Later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced?"
Stoppard asks these questions in one of his most beautiful passages in Coast of Utopia. Herzen watches his son Kolya die and reflects on what it means to love something that will not last: "Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what only lives for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last."
The utilitarian case for libertythat it produces better outcomes, more prosperity, greater innovationis true but incomplete. Freedom is valuable in itself, as an expression of human dignity, as the necessary condition for a present and meaningful life. "It's only we humans who want to own the future, too."
Stoppard presented an existential view of freedom. Freedom is not merely an instrumental means to something else. It is a constitutive part of what it means to be a human mind that thinks and acts in the world. This is why free people do not have to be politically motivated to threaten a totalitarian system. They just need to act and think as free people.
Stoppard returned again and again to artists, intellectuals, and dissidents as his protagonists. In Rock 'n' Roll, set across the decades of Czechoslovak communism, the character of Jan insists that listening to the band the Plastic People of the Universe is not a political act. The authorities had a different understanding. A band playing music they want to play, for an audience that wants to hear it, outside the structures of state approval is intolerable precisely because it is not political. It is simply free. As Stoppard himself explained : "They're not actually ideological, they just want to play their music and they don't care about communism or anti-communismthey're musicians, artists, pagans. The police resent them because they don't care."
This indifference is their power and their peril. At some point, the regime wants to make concessions to their performance, but in exchange asks them to cut their long hair. They agree to what sounds like a trivial concession. Then they are asked to soften a lyric, to make one small compromise after another. The cumulative effect is surrender. This is the road to serfdom as lived experience.
The totalitarian worlds that haunted Stoppard were not abstract to him. Born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslovakia in 1937, he fled the Nazi invasion as an infant. His father died when the Japanese bombed his ship fleeing Singapore. His mother remarried a British army major, and Tomas became Tom. He later described himself as a "bounced Czech" who " put on Englishness like a coat."
His biography gave Stoppard something that theoretical defenders of liberty often lack: the personal knowledge of what it means when freedom fails. Relatives of his had died in concentration camps, and he did not learn their names until he was in his fifties. He visited Prague in 1977 to meet Vaclav Havel and other dissidents. He wrote about Havel's trial along with three other Chartists, noting the Kafkaesque absurdity of one of the charges: "damaging the name of the state abroad." The show trial, he observed, was "not good theatre" because the puppets kept showing their strings.
Stoppard called himself a " timid libertarian." He distrusted grand ideological pronouncements, having seen where they led in the 20th century. Instead, he explored freedom's stakes through worlds that are simultaneously fantastic, deeply personal, and tragically incomplete. As he spoke while accepting the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award : "You kind of stand there in your Western idea of what morality is and what amorality is and suddenly you're not quite sure. You thought you'd always known what was which and suddenly, you're not sure. This is the fate of thoughtful people as the century unfolds."
That uncertainty and epistemic humility is part of a fully human life. Questioning one's reality was an idea that Stoppard returned to, through the frame of theatrical performance, from his early breakout work, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966), to The Real Inspector Hound (1968) and The Real Thing (1982). In each play, the characters (and the audience) are challenged on what is real. To live among unanswered questions, rival interpretations, and half-finished conversations is not a regrettable price we pay for better theories. It is the atmosphere in which free and rational animals live and breathe.
In Stoppard's Arcadia, Thomasina Coverly, a mathematical prodigy of thirteen, weeps for the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and all the knowledge that was lost with it. Her tutor Septimus consoles her: "We shed as we pick up, like travelers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind."
Septimus's consolation is also Stoppard's epistemology. Knowledge is not a treasure locked in a single vault, vulnerable to any barbarian with a torch. It is dispersed across countless minds, rediscovered in countless contexts, carried forward through the unpredictable conversations of free people thinking aloud. The march of open societies is a distribution of intellectual risk, a world where no single fire can consume what humanity knows. As long as we keep thinking and talking, reading and writing, singing and dancing, truth will reveal itself again and again. This is why totalitarianism must control not just the state but the human soul, and why the dissident who simply insists on freely thinking his own thoughts poses such a threat.
Stoppard taught me that, in the political community, freedom and knowledge are not separate domains, nor are they abstract ideals reserved for a utopian future; they are things to be practiced now, amidst the mess and noise of the living. And now the playwright himself has become one of Septimus's travelers, letting fall what we who follow will pick up.
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Original text here: https://fee.org/articles/theatres-timid-libertarian/
The Moral Case for Freedom
DETROIT, Michigan, Dec. 2 -- The Foundation for Economic Education posted the following news:
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The Moral Case for Freedom
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A review of Gary Galles's 'Freedom in One Lesson: The Best of Leonard Read.'
This book review first appeared in the December 2025 issue of Quadrant.
Two generations before Charlie Kirk there was Leonard Read. He too travelled the country debating with students and telling them how to build a good society.
The essence of Read's philosophy comprises individual liberty, the free market, private property, and government limited to securing these rights equally for
... Show Full Article
DETROIT, Michigan, Dec. 2 -- The Foundation for Economic Education posted the following news:
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The Moral Case for Freedom
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A review of Gary Galles's 'Freedom in One Lesson: The Best of Leonard Read.'
This book review first appeared in the December 2025 issue of Quadrant.
Two generations before Charlie Kirk there was Leonard Read. He too travelled the country debating with students and telling them how to build a good society.
The essence of Read's philosophy comprises individual liberty, the free market, private property, and government limited to securing these rights equally forall. Everyone is free to do as they please provided they do not infringe on the equal right and opportunity of everyone else to do so too. Everyone can pursue their ambitions; associate with whomever they please; worship God in their own way; choose their own job or profession; run a business; and keep their honestly acquired property and savings or dispose of it as they wish. The society prospers because it uses the creative talents and resources of all its citizens, not just an elite few.
In Freedom in One Lesson, Gary Galles curates Read's books, speeches and essays, and shows their contemporary relevance. The title pays homage to Read's friend and colleague Henry Hazlitt, who in 1946 wrote Economics in One Lesson, a book still unmatched for teaching the principles of sound economics. That same year, Read and Hazlitt formed the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) dedicated to inspiring, educating, and connecting future leaders with the economic, ethical, and legal principles of a free society. Nearly eighty years later, the FEE continues its missionthrough online courses, essays, seminars, conferences and scholarships.
Read is most famous for his brilliant essay "I, Pencil." In telling the life story of a simple pencil, he demonstrates how the price miracle facilitates the economic collaboration of millions of people. In worldwide supply chains they produce myriads of things. Everyone prospers by doing their bit without needing to know what the others are doing. There is no mastermind, no one controlling their activities. The "miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon" have no idea they are contributing to the manufacture of a pencil.
Perhaps the most telling consequence of Read's philosophy is that it leads to a more moral society. The zeitgeist of his time was that the communism of Stalin and the socialism of Roosevelt's New Deal created societies of equality. In practice it did not work out that way. The horrors of communism have been well documented, but the errors of the social-democratic welfare state are not so obvious.
The morality of the latter is based on compassion for victims. The welfare state compulsorily acquires from those who haveregardless of how honestly it has been acquiredand redistributes it to those who have notregardless of the cause of their disadvantage. The unintended consequence is that less work is done by the capable, fewer risks are taken by the entrepreneurs, and the number of citizens entitled to benefits grows. Individual responsibility declines. Crime flourishes. The decline in prosperity means there is less wealth to share than there might have been. Moreover, the benefits do not flow primarily to the poor and the disadvantaged, they flow to a new class of political bureaucrats, academics, and crony capitalists. Milovan Djilas documented this in his 1957 classic The New Class, where he analysed the communist system of the Soviet Union and his native Yugoslavia. Today, Djilas's themes are repeated in Brussels, Washington and Canberra.
Nowadays, we take it for granted that our politicians will enhance their prospects of being re-elected by doing special favours for those in their electorates, or for those who fund their party. Also, that they will enlist public servants to promote them on social media and employ consultants at public expense to write reports to support their ideologically driven projects.
In contrast, Read believed that:
A good government... cannot be a government that divides the population into classes... A good government is one whose administrators must think of themselves only as representatives, as servants of the people, administering just laws, impartially and impersonally. They must never assume the notion that election or appointment to office places them in positions from where an undelegated, arbitrary attitude is permissible. They must never think, the minute they are in office, that they are members of a new class, a different interest, that they must fortify their new positions by intrigues and favours to assure their permanency.
Just as Charlie Kirk did when he engaged in debate with university students, Leonard Read was a practitioner of Socratic dialogue. In the following excerpt, Read argues that it cannot be right for a government to do something that we would regard as morally wrong if done by an individual.
Q: Joe Doakes was lynched. Who did it?
A: A mob.
Q: A mob is but a label. Of what is it composed?
A: Individuals.
Q: Then did not each individual in the mob lynch Joe Doakes?
A: That would seem to be the case.
Q: Very well. Can any individual gain absolution by committing murder in the name of a label, the mob, a collective?
A: I guess not.
Q: Now that we have established that point, let me pose another question. Do you believe in thievery?
A: Of course not.
Q: Logically, then, you do not believe that you should use force to take my income to feather your own nest. True or false?
A: True.
Q: Is the principle changed if two of you gang up on me?
A: Not at all.
Q: One million? Even a majority?
A: Well perhaps OK if a majority does it.
Q: Do you mean that makes it right?
A: Oh, no.
Q: That is what you have just said. Would you care to retract that?
A: To be logical, I must.
Q: You have now agreed that not even 200 million people or any agency thereof: government, labor unions, educational institutions, business firms, or whateverhave a moral right to feather their nests at the expense of others, that is, to advance their own special interests at taxpayers' expense. You have also admitted that no one gains absolution by acting in the name of a collective. Therefore, is not every member who supports or even condones a wrong collective action just as guilty as if he personally committed the act?
A: I have never thought of it that way, but now I believe you are right.
Freedom in One Lesson is a fine contribution to our debate on how to improve our society so that everyone can live happy, prosperous and meaningful lives. We are indebted to Gary Galles for rejuvenating the work of Leonard Read and explaining its relevance to contemporary issues. Read's influence, and the continuing work of the FEE, is a nice complement to Turning Point USA and the legacy of Charlie Kirk.
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Original text here: https://fee.org/articles/the-moral-case-for-freedom/
NFWF Awarded $50,000 from Amazon Web Services (AWS) 2025 IMAGINE Grant
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release:
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NFWF Awarded $50,000 from Amazon Web Services (AWS) 2025 IMAGINE Grant
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Washington, D.C. (December 2, 2025) - Since its creation by Congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) has grown to become the largest conservation foundation in the United States. For more than 40 years, NFWF has played an essential role at the center of the nation's wildlife conservation community.
Now AWS has selected NFWF as a winner of the 2025 AWS IMAGINE Grant, a public grant opportunity
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release:
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NFWF Awarded $50,000 from Amazon Web Services (AWS) 2025 IMAGINE Grant
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Washington, D.C. (December 2, 2025) - Since its creation by Congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) has grown to become the largest conservation foundation in the United States. For more than 40 years, NFWF has played an essential role at the center of the nation's wildlife conservation community.
Now AWS has selected NFWF as a winner of the 2025 AWS IMAGINE Grant, a public grant opportunityopen to registered 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom who are using technology to solve the world's most pressing challenges.
As a winner in the Momentum to Modernize category, which recognizes highly innovative projects using advanced cloud services, NFWF will receive support from AWS to accelerate the modernization of its databases and systems management. These rapid improvements will help one of the nation's most important and largest wildlife conservation foundations transform 40 years of knowledge and data into an accessible repository of conservation knowledge for NFWF staff and the conservation community, at large.
"Funding and organizational bandwidth for wildlife conservation are relatively rare and precious resources," said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and chief executive officer at NFWF. "Rapid technological advances at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will enable us to analyze and leverage four decades worth of conservation data in new and exciting ways.
"This AWS IMAGINE Grant will strengthen our ability to focus investments on conservation projects and practices that generate the greatest possible benefits to both wildlife and people."
NFWF uses public funding as a springboard to raise private-sector contributions for wildlife conservation, then invests those funds through its industry-leading competitive grant-making processes. Through rigorous analysis of conservation projects and a focus on measurable results, the Foundation has helped advance the science and practice of wildlife conservation across the United States.
Technological advancement achieved through the AWS IMAGINE Grant are expected to greatly increase NFWF's ability to:
* Extract valuable insights from the Foundation's unique collection of historical data related to wildlife conservation practices
* Expand and contextualize evaluations of past grant awards and conservation practices in innovative ways, thereby improving the ability to identify trends, measure outcomes, predict potential benefits of future investments and optimize conservation strategies
* Review new proposals for conformance to solicitation guidelines and strategic directives
* Explore seemingly limitless opportunities to correlate and assess data across geographies, conservation practices and wildlife classifications
About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) works with partners to foster sustainable and impactful conservation solutions so that people and nature thrive together. Chartered by Congress in 1984, NFWF has grown to become the nation's largest conservation foundation. Since its founding, NFWF has funded more than 23,300 projects that have generated a total conservation impact of more than $11.3 billion. Learn more at nfwf.org.
Contact:
Matt Winter, 202-857-0166, matt.winter@nfwf.org
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Original text here: https://www.nfwf.org/media-center/press-releases/nfwf-awarded-50000-amazon-web-services-aws-2025-imagine-grant
NFWF Announces Nearly $12 Million in Grants from Long Island Sound Futures Fund
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release:
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NFWF Announces Nearly $12 Million in Grants from Long Island Sound Futures Fund
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Connecticut (December 2, 2025) - The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and partners today announced nearly $12 million in grants to organizations and local governments to improve the health of Long Island Sound and its wildlife populations. The grants will leverage more than $8 million in matching contributions from the grantees themselves, resulting in more than $20 million in total conservation
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release:
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NFWF Announces Nearly $12 Million in Grants from Long Island Sound Futures Fund
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Connecticut (December 2, 2025) - The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and partners today announced nearly $12 million in grants to organizations and local governments to improve the health of Long Island Sound and its wildlife populations. The grants will leverage more than $8 million in matching contributions from the grantees themselves, resulting in more than $20 million in total conservationimpact for projects in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont.
The 2025 Long Island Sound Futures Fund (Futures Fund) grants will support projects that:
* Prevent 618,934 gallons of stormwater and 2,996 pounds of nitrogen pollution from entering the Long Island Sound
* Remove 161,250 pounds of marine debris
* Restore 70 acres of coastal habitat
* Engage more than 300,000 people through programs that promote stewardship of the Sound
* Conserve and enhance habitats for shorebirds, songbirds, diamondback terrapins, native pollinators and other wildlife
* Restore fish passage for brook trout and migratory aquatic species such as alewives, blueback herring, shad and eel
* Launch new oyster restoration efforts
Funding for the grant program comes from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the Long Island Sound Partnership (LISP), with additional support from NFWF and The Zoetis Foundation.
"Estuaries and their surrounding lands and waters represent some of the most productive wildlife habitats and most economically important areas in the world," said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF. "The Long Island Sound is the second-largest estuary on the East Coast and one of North America's most biologically diverse estuaries. Its watershed stretches 16,820 square miles across five states, with more than 16,000 miles of rivers feeding fresh water into the sound.
"Sustaining the health of Long Island Sound benefits a wondrous assortment of wildlife while also ensuring prosperity for thousands of communities, large and small."
The LISP initiated the Futures Fund in 2005 through EPA's Long Island Sound Office and NFWF. The grant program has a strong history of making environmental improvements by supporting people and communities who value the Sound and take a direct role in its future.
Since its inception, the Futures Fund has invested $68 million in 688 projects. The program has generated an additional $87 million of grantee matching contributions toward these projects for a total conservation impact of $167 million. The projects have reduced 130,000 pounds of nitrogen from entering the Sound, restored 862 acres of fish and wildlife habitat, treated 212 million gallons of stormwater pollution, and engaged 5 million people in protection and restoration of the Sound.
"This year's Futures Fund projects will support water quality improvements, habitat restoration, and other critical efforts across the watershed that are vital to protecting Long Island Sound," said EPA New England Regional Administrator Mark Sanborn. "Long Island Sound is a national treasure, and this funding exemplifies EPA's commitment to supporting the economic and recreational benefits the Sound offers to millions of people."
"EPA is proud to support conservation and restoration efforts in the Long Island Sound, working alongside our state and local partners," said EPA Region 2 Administrator Michael Martucci. "These practical projects not only preserve vital ecosystems but also help build a legacy of environmental stewardship for future generations."
"The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) stands proudly with the Long Island Sound Partnership and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in welcoming another year of impactful Futures Fund projects across the Long Island Sound Watershed," CT DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said. "In Connecticut, eleven distinct NGOs took home a total of 12 awards (Save the Sound was awarded two!) for projects ranging from riparian buffers to fish passage restoration, hands-on science programs to saltmarsh restoration, and a green roof. These are just a few of the ways that today's grantees are embracing this funding opportunity to further the health of our resources and residents across the Long Island Sound Watershed."
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton said "DEC is committed to protecting Long Island Sound, one of New York's most important natural resources, a vital economic engine, and a place cherished by communities along its shores. The Futures Fund supports projects that strengthen the Sound's ecosystem by improving water quality, restoring habitats, and encouraging local stewardship, while reflecting a shared commitment with our partners at EPA, NFWF, and CTDEEP. DEC applauds the awardees for the meaningful benefits their work will deliver."
A complete list of the 2025 grants made through the Long Island Sound Futures Fund is available here. See a list of quotes from elected officials about today's grant announcement here. To learn more, please visit the NFWF Long Island Sound Futures Fund website.
BACKGROUND
Long Island Sound is an estuary that provides economic and recreational benefits to millions of people while also providing habitat for more than 1,200 invertebrates, 170 species of fish and dozens of species of migratory birds. The grant projects contribute to a healthier Long Island Sound for everyone, from nearby area residents to those at the furthest reaches of the Sound. All 9 million people who live, work, and play in the watershed impacting the Sound can benefit from and help build on the progress that has already been made.
About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Chartered by Congress in 1984, NFWF has grown to become the nation's largest conservation foundation. NFWF works with the public and private sectors to sustain, restore and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants and habitats for current and future generations. Since its founding, NFWF has supported more than 7,000 grantee organizations and funded over 23,300 projects that have generated a total conservation impact of $11.3 billion. Learn more at nfwf.org.
About the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Grants
Every year, EPA awards more than $4 billion in funding for grants and other assistance agreements. From small non-profit organizations to large state governments, EPA works to help many visionary organizations achieve their environmental goals. With countless success stories over the years, EPA grants remain a chief tool to protect human health and the environment. Follow EPA Region 1 (New England) on X and visit our Facebook page. For more information about EPA Region 1, visit the website.
About the Long Island Sound Partnership
The Long Island Sound Partnership, developed under the EPA's National Estuary Program, is a cooperative effort between the EPA and the states of Connecticut and New York to protect and restore the Sound and its ecosystem. To learn more about the Long Island Sound Partnership, visit the website.
Contact:
Stephen Heverly, for National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), 301-485-4370, sheverly@thehatchergroup.com
John Senn, U.S. EPA Region 1 (New England), 857-329-2447, Senn.John@epa.gov
Carlos Vega, U.S. EPA Region 2, 212-637-3662, vega.carlos@epa.gov
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Original text here: https://www.nfwf.org/media-center/press-releases/nfwf-announces-nearly-12-million-grants-long-island-sound-futures-fund
Following Longest Shutdown in History, Voters Want Fiscal Solutions
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 -- The Peter G. Peterson Foundation posted the following news release:
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Following Longest Shutdown in History, Voters Want Fiscal Solutions
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As lawmakers return to Washington after the longest government shutdown in history, American voters are calling on their representatives to prioritize responsible budgeting that would improve our fiscal outlook. The U.S. Fiscal Confidence Index is 50 (100 is neutral), reflecting deep concern about the rising national debt, which surpassed $38 trillion during the shutdown, just 70 days after exceeding $37 trillion.
According to
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 -- The Peter G. Peterson Foundation posted the following news release:
* * *
Following Longest Shutdown in History, Voters Want Fiscal Solutions
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As lawmakers return to Washington after the longest government shutdown in history, American voters are calling on their representatives to prioritize responsible budgeting that would improve our fiscal outlook. The U.S. Fiscal Confidence Index is 50 (100 is neutral), reflecting deep concern about the rising national debt, which surpassed $38 trillion during the shutdown, just 70 days after exceeding $37 trillion.
According tothe latest monthly survey commissioned by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, 82% of voters believe lawmakers should spend more time addressing the national debt tying the highest percentage this year. Additionally, 79% of voters agree reducing the debt should be a top-three priority for the president and Congress, including 73% of Democrats, 75% of independents and 86% of Republicans.
"Soaring past $38 trillion in debt during the longest shutdown in U.S. history is a clear sign that we need a renewed commitment to fiscal sanity and responsible budgeting," said Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peterson Foundation. "With the government now reopen, this survey shows that strong majorities of voters across party lines want their leaders to get to work on solutions to put our national debt on a more sustainable path. Our nation is accumulating debt faster than ever, so now is the time to act to improve our economic future."
The Fiscal Confidence Index measures public opinion about the national debt by asking six questions in three key areas:
* CONCERN: Level of concern and views about the direction of the national debt.
* PRIORITY: How high a priority addressing the debt should be for elected leaders.
* EXPECTATIONS: Expectations about whether the debt situation will get better or worse in the next few years.
The survey results from these three areas are weighted equally and averaged to produce the Fiscal Confidence Index value. The Fiscal Confidence Index, like the Consumer Confidence Index, is indexed on a scale of 0 to 200, with a neutral midpoint of 100. A reading above 100 indicates positive sentiment. A reading below 100 indicates negative sentiment.
Fiscal Confidence Index Key Data Points:
* The November 2025 Fiscal Confidence Index value is 50. (The October value was 46. The September value was 46.)
* The current Fiscal Confidence Index score for CONCERN about the debt is 47, indicating deep concern about the debt. The score for debt as a PRIORITY that leaders must address is 24, indicating that Americans want elected leaders to make addressing long-term debt a high priority. The score for EXPECTATIONS about progress on the debt is 81. The Fiscal Confidence Index is the average of these three sub-category scores.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation commissioned this poll by Democratic firm Global Strategy Group and Republican firm North Star Opinion Research. The online poll surveyed 1,004 registered voters nationwide between November 17 and November 19, 2025. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.
Detailed results can be found online at www.pgpf.org/FiscalConfidenceIndex.
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Original text here: https://www.pgpf.org/press/2025-11-fci-press-release/
