Inside Philanthropy

Who's Funding What & Why

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Klarman Family Foundation

OVERVIEW: The Klarman Family Foundation’s medical research grantmaking generally supports work on cellular biology and eating disorders, with current priorities in anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders. It also supports efforts to promote healthy democratic institutions in Boston, the United States and Israel.

IP TAKE: While the Klarman Family Foundation has been active for nearly four decades, “there’s a good chance that the Klarmans are still just getting warmed up.” Much of the Klarman Family Foundation’s grantmaking centers around the greater Boston area and Israel, but its support for medical research and eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa, is where grantseekers may find the most opportunity. However, this funder is not accessible. This funder takes a proactive approach to giving and scouts its own grantees to fund. It is, however, open to contact, so you can learn more about how it chooses what to fund and whether it has an evolving interest that may not yet be reflected on its site. This funder will require networking to get on its radar.

PROFILE:

Established in 1990, the Klarman Family Foundation is the private foundation of financial investor Seth and Beth Klarman. Giving Pledge signatories, he and his wife, Beth, have shared that they intend to give away most of their wealth during their lifetimes. The foundation aims to “identify areas of unmet need and to advance solutions to addressing them” and promote “the importance of creative thinking, strategic leadership and strong organizations to help bring about change.” The foundation’s current areas of focus include Medical & Scientific Research, Healthy Democracy, Expanding Access, and Global Jewish Community & Israel.

Grants for Mental Health and Diseases

Klarman’s Medical & Scientific Research grants support research to “advance understanding of the biological basis of health and illness.” It seeks projects that have the potential to “generate resources and knowledge for the greater scientific community, leverage those resources through collaborations, and accelerate findings.”

The foundation currently prioritizes Eating Disorders Research, with one- to three-year grants to “understand the biology underlying the psychiatric disease anorexia nervosa, with the goal of accelerating progress toward prevention and treatment.”

  • Klarman established the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI) at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, with researchers from the United States, Sweden, Australia and Denmark participating in what the foundation calls the “largest genetic investigation of eating disorders ever conducted.”
    • The initiative’s goal is to increase and transform knowledge regarding the causes of eating disorders and to build better understanding.
    • The ultimate goal is to discover a cure for disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders.
    • The foundation expects its ANGI research to expand the study of other psychiatric illnesses, as well.

Outside of its support for eating disorder research, the foundation established the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a $32.5 million grant in 2012. The observatory “is a pilot effort to systematically define cellular circuits in mammalian cells.”

Grants for Civic and Democracy

Klarman’s Healthy Democracy grantmaking is based on the belief that “the preservation of democratic norms lies at the core of all our work, and that a healthy democracy is crucial to everything we seek to achieve as a foundation.” It funds programs that work to:

  • strengthen equal protection under the rule of law
  • rebuild trust in news, science, and facts
  • rebuild confidence in democratic institutions, and the role and responsibilities for citizens to participate in democracy
  • strengthen accountability of government institutions
  • build social cohesion and address hate within and across communities

Past grantees include the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Action for Boston Community Development.

Grants for Boston

With its Expanding Access focus area, the Klarman Family Foundation has emerged as a top funder for the health and well-being of individuals and families in Boston. It partners and invests in nonprofits and local organizations to address issues and challenges faced by the community, and it works to guarantee access to basic services needed by all. Supported initiatives in this area include:

Grants for Jewish Causes

The Klarman Family Foundation’s Jewish Community and Israel grantmaking centers around addressing anti-Semitism, connecting Jewish people around the globe to Israel, and supporting the lives of Arab Israelis in order to strengthen the country as a whole.

  • A small sample of organizations supported in these areas include the Anti-Defamation League, International Association of Yahad-In Unum, Keshet, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Honeymoon Israel Foundation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Israel & Co., Israel-America Academic Exchange, the David Project, Kav Mashve, Matan, Jewish Funders Network, and Technion.

The foundation also gives to Jewish-related causes within a broader umbrella of supporting critical services and life enrichment. Many additional, non-Jewish-related organizations are also funded in this manner.

  • Examples of Jewish-related support in this realm range from Beth Israel Medical Center, to Foundation for Jewish Camp, to the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, among many others. Funding in this realm is particularly focused on the Boston area and Israel.

Grants for Higher Education

Klarman donated $26 million toward the construction of Klarman Hall at Cornell University, Seth’s alma mater, and it also funds the Klarman Fellowships in the College of Arts & Sciences at the university, which go to early career scholars in both the sciences and humanities. Klarman also supports Cornell Hillel. At Harvard, Klarman also gave a $120 million naming gift to build Klarman Hall, a conference center and performance space.

Grants for Climate Change

While it is not listed among the foundation’s focus areas, Klarman partnered with twelve other climate funders in 2022 to create a new collaborative called Forest, People, Climate, which is a global collaborative that works on equitable solutions to end and reverse tropical deforestation. Its goal is to secure $2 billion toward the effort and has a particular emphasis on supporting Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descents in tropical forest countries.

Important Grant Details:

Grants generally range from $1,000 to $1 million, but they have reached as high as $7 million. The most common amount is $25,000. The foundation gave over $86 million in grants in a recent year and held nearly a billion in assets.

  • The foundation does not accept unsolicited applications or requests for funding and reviews grant proposals on an invitation-only basis.
  • Klarman Family Foundation trustees review grant recommendations throughout the year.

Direct general questions to the foundation via its contact form.

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