OVERVIEW: The Bedari Foundation is dedicated to using its experience and resources to enable significant cultural shifts in the fields of mental health and wellness, community displacement and environmental conservation.
IP TAKE: This funder does not maintain a website and maintains and exceptionally low profile. Bedari is a highly targeted funder that focuses on only a few major projects at a time. Its grantees appear to be organizations with which Matt and Jennifer Harris maintain a personal connection or interest, including some innovative organizations doing research to establish connections between kindness, the arts, mental health and wellness. Bedari proactively selects its grantees through in-house research. Finding a direct connection to Bedari’s founders will be key here.
PROFILE: The Bedari Foundation, formerly the Matthew and Jennifer Harris Family Foundation, was established in 2011. It was founded by businessman Matthew and Jennifer Harris. Matt Harris is a founding partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, one of the world’s leading infrastructure investment firms. Matt also founded Bedari, an impact company innovating at the intersection of investment, philanthropy and sustainability. Matt holds a B.A. in Political Science from the UCLA. He serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy, and is a member of the UCLA College of Social Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board.
According to a recent tax filing, this foundation makes program-related investments “to preserve animals, including endangered species, to support land conservation and to promote community development in rural Mozambique.” The foundation has also demonstrated an interest in mental health.
Grants for Environmental Conservation, Animals and Wildlife
This low-profile funder does not articulate specific interests for its environmental giving.
- Matthew and Jennifer Harris are on the board of World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), an important grantee partner. The foundation facilitated a partnership between the government of Bhutan and the WWF to protect and preserve the country’s park system in perpetuity.
- The Bedari Foundation also provides funding to the Mozambique’s Karingani Game Reserve, a 350,000 acre “positive impact sanctuary” that “not only greatly increases dedicated wildlife management, but also [provides] sustainable protection through community education and involvement and infrastructure development.”
Grants for Mental Health
The Bedari Foundation’s largest investment in mental health consists of a $20 million gift to Matthew Harris’s alma mater, UCLA, for the establishment of the Bedari Kindness Institute, which was established in 2019. The institute facilitates interdisciplinary research on kindness and its impact on wellness, relationships and society.
- Other grants have supported the Neuroarts Resource Center, which focuses on “the power of the arts and aesthetic experiences to enhance health and wellbeing,” and the Emerald Gate Foundation, which addresses “improvement of the human condition and expansion of the conscious mind through scientific discovery and empowerment at the individual and local community level.
Other grant opportunities:
Outside of the Bedari Foundation, the Harrises have also supported American Foundation for Addiction Research, Equal Justice Initiative, and Foundation for Santa Barbara High School. They have also supported arts & culture organizations in New York City, such as New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Important Grant Details:
Bedari’s grants range from about $34,000 to $1.5 million, although most grants stay under $250,000, and the foundation has recently made fewer than ten grants a year.
- This foundation appears to support organizations with which its founders maintain personal connection or interest.
- The Bedari Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding at this time.
- The Bedari Foundation does not provide a way to get in touch, but an address and phone number are provided below.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
CONTACT:
Bedari Foundation
c/o Global Infrastructure Management
1345 Avenue of the Americas, 30th floor
New York, NY 10105
(212) 315-8143