The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is an American family run foundation based in Oakland, California. The foundation primarily does work to enhance the quality of life by championing and sustaining the arts, promoting early childhood literacy, and supporting research to cure chronic disease.
Video The Kenneth Rainin Foundation
History
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation was founded by Kenneth Rainin, a businessman, and philanthropist who made his fortune founding scientific and medical product companies. Originally from Ohio, Rainin first worked in the scientific instruments industry in Boston. At the age of 25, he founded Rainin Instrument Company, which sold a mainstream brand of laboratory pipettes. Rainin eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Kenneth Rainin donated a substantial part of his fortune to a variety of causes during his lifetime. He supported the San Francisco Ballet, where he served as Chairman of the Executive Committee. Rainin also supported research at University of California, San Francisco and Cleveland Clinic Foundation into the causes of Crohn's disease and colitis and other intestinal disorders, he later founded the Kenneth Rainin Foundation in support of his philanthropic interests and after his death in 2007, the foundation became the main beneficiary of his estate.
Maps The Kenneth Rainin Foundation
Leadership
The foundation is currently still a family run organization, Jennifer Rainin (Kenneth Rainin's daughter) has served as CEO of the Foundation since its public launch in 2009.
Mission
The Rainin Foundation supports visionary artists and arts organizations in the Bay Area that push the boundaries of creative expression. In education, it invests in early childhood literacy programs within the Oakland Unified School District. Its health program funds scientific research on an international level related to Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
Arts
The foundation provides support for small and mid-sized performing and multidisciplinary arts organizations in the Bay Area. In the past dramatical groups and organizations such the American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, and Shotgun Players have received grants from the Foundation. With funds from the Rainin Foundation, SFFILM (formerly known as San Francisco Film Society) administers a grants program to support narrative feature films that explore contemporary social issues. In addition to financial assistance, recipients receive various benefits through SFFILMs filmmaker services programs. Since 2009, more than $3.5 million has been awarded, recipients include Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild''.
In 2013, the Rainin Foundation collaborated with Northern California Community Loan Fund (NCCLF) to create the Community Arts Stabilisation Trust (a nonprofit real estate holding company that purchases property in the Bay Area and provides leases for the exclusive use of arts organisations.) The Rainin Foundation awarded $5 million in seed funding to launch the organisation. Community Arts Stabilisation Trust successes to date include purchasing and renovating spaces for two San Francisco arts organisations, the Luggage Store Gallery, a multidisciplinary arts centre, and CounterPulse, an interdisciplinary dance company.
The foundation launched its Open Spaces Program in 2016 to support temporary, site specific public art projects in Oakland and San Francisco that engage communities, showcase artistic experimentation, and energize public spaces. In December 2016, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Rainin Foundation would provide funds for a financial and technical assistance program to help arts organisations facing displacement in Oakland.
Education
The aim of the Rainin Foundation's education program is to improve literacy and reading for young children and students in the Oakland Unified School District up to third grade. The foundation implements SEEDS of Learning in the Oakland Unified School District. Originally developed at the University of Minnesota, SEEDS of Learning is a professional development program through which the foundation supplies resources and strategies to educators, parents, and caregivers to build social, emotional, language and literacy tools for young children to prepare them for success in kindergarten. The program served approximately 1,300 students in the 2016-2017 school year.
In 2014, the program piloted 'Talk Read Sing', a public awareness campaign to distribute materials to encourage parents and caregivers to talk, read, and sing to infants and toddlers to promote early literacy development. The foundation partnered with Bay Area Council Children's Hospital Oakland, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and others on the project.The foundation also partnered with NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct a survey of over 400 low-income families in Oakland, including understanding parenting behaviors and reading habits.
Health
The Rainin Foundation has become a front runner in advancing Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) research. The Foundation's health program awards grants to encourage collaboration and cutting edge research for projects aimed at diagnosing, treating, and ultimately curing IBD; the program is open to researchers at all levels and from any scientific discipline. The health program also provides longer-term support for previous grantees and hosts an annual symposium aimed at speeding up innovations to improve treatments for IBD. Recipients of grants include research institutions, such as Washington University in St. Louis, Weill Cornell Medicine, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, Stanford University School of Medicine, and University of Texas at Austin.
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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