Christensen Fund

Christensen Fund

" Allen D. and Carmen M. Christensen founded the Christensen Fund as a private foundation in 1957. Mr. Christensen, who was a civil and mining engineer and served as President of the Utah Mining and Construction Company for many years, was an enthusiastic and eclectic art collector. Mrs. Christensen had a strong interest in education both as an educator of studio arts and an artist. Mr. and Mrs. Christensen's interest in the visual arts and music strongly influenced the Fund's direction. One of their children, Diane Christensen, currently serves on the Board.

"Beginning in the early 1970s, the Christensen Fund added to its charitable and educational activities the acquisition of fine arts and ethnographic artifacts. From 1972 to 1999 the Fund was a private operating foundation, its operations being the loan of non-Western art collections to museums and arranging for their study and exhibition in Australia, Europe and the United States.

"By 1981, the Fund's focus had expanded to include support for research in natural history through its support of the Christensen Research Institution (CRI) in Papua New Guinea. The Fund also supported the partners and organizations associated with CRI, including California Academy of Sciences, Oxford University, Stanford University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Upon CRI's closure in 1996, the Fund began grant-making to conservation organizations involved in conservation related field research. Principal among those was the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), formerly New York Zoological Society...

"During the mid-1990s, the Fund decided to donate its art collections to museums at which these were on loan, or repatriate them to appropriate bodies, with the donations accelerating in the late 1990s and early 2000s (see Art Collection). By 2002, the Fund thereby ceased to be an operating foundation and became a private foundation, solely dedicated to grant-making, creating a new Board of majority non-family members to develop a new programs under the leadership of a new Executive Director, Dr. Kenneth Wilson."

Directors
Accessed December 2008:


 * Diane Christensen (President and Chair)
 * Walter Coward, Jr.
 * Rodolfo Dirzo
 * Kenneth Kirshenbaum (Treasurer)
 * Winona LaDuke
 * John G. Robinson
 * Thomas K. Seligman (Vice President)
 * Atossa Soltani
 * Tara Diann Stein (Secretary)
 * Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
 * Kenneth Wilson

Program Officer Bios
Accessed December 2008:


 * Erjen Khamaganova (Program Officer for Central Asia and Turkey)
 * Henrietta Marrie (Program Officer for Northern Australia)
 * Laura Monti (Program Officer for The Greater American Southwest)
 * Catherine Sparks (Program Officer for Melanesia)
 * Wolde Gossa Tadesse (Program Officer for the African Rift Valley)
 * Gleb Raygorodetsky (Program Officer for Global Biocultural Initiative)
 * Phrang Roy (Program Officer for Global Biocultural Initiative)
 * Erika Zavaleta Program Consultant for Landscape Ecology and Climate Change Adaptation

Contact

 * Web: http://www.christensenfund.org

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Cultural Survival: Funders
 * World Wilderness Congress
 * The Consultative Group on Biological Diversity
 * Conservation Strategy Fund
 * Ecoagriculture Partners
 * Sebastiao Salgado