Reconnecting Ecology, Culture, and Spirituality

Kalliopeia Foundation is responding to a global need that is emerging across cultures: to take spiritual as well as physical responsibility for our common home.

Our programs and those we support are rooted in the understanding that ecological, cultural, and spiritual renewal are interdependent. We partner with individuals and organizations who create and hold a space where pressing, contemporary issues can be engaged through this holistic lens. In doing so, we envision a future that is built upon compassion, respect, dignity, reverence for nature, and care for each other and the Earth. 

Our work is grounded in four core principles:

Life Is Sacred: to honor all life as sacred, expressing reverence for one another, the Earth, and life as a whole.

Interconnectedness: to approach ecology, culture, and spirituality as inextricable and  interdependent.

Innovation: to generate creative ideas and outcomes through simple, meaningful engagement with others and the Earth.

Service: to embrace an ethic of care—the essential and natural aspiration to respond to needs beyond our own.

Kalliopeia respectfully acknowledges that we are located on the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok people of present-day Marin County.

Kalliopeia’s Story

In 1997, Kalliopeia was founded as an independent private foundation to help support people and organizations who are working to bring spiritual values into institutions and systems of everyday life and work. The name “Kalliopeia” means beautiful voice and refers to the first of the nine Greek muses. She is associated with heroic poetry, justice, and transforming lower qualities into higher.

1997
Year founded
500+
Organizations funded
10K+
Classrooms reached with educational curriculum

Kalliopeia’s impact over the past two decades:

  • Provided grant support toward innovative programs that bring spiritual values to bear on personal and cultural transformation, including 25 percent of grant dollars to Native-led cultural and language revitalization projects.
  • Developed educational curricula used by thousands of schools nationwide and globally, and produced award-winning documentary films through Global Oneness Project.
  • Supported two cohorts of young leaders through our Spiritual Ecology Fellowship.
  • Launched Emergence Magazine, a free, online magazine with an annual printed edition, featuring stories that explore the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Our Commitment

The Foundation’s assets are thoughtfully invested in alignment with our mission and values. We have invested over 95 percent of the Foundation’s portfolio using a social and environmental lens, while taking a financially sound approach. We invest in companies, organizations, and funds that are committed to environmental stewardship, community resilience, economic development, equal opportunity, equity, and diversity. Within our portfolio we have targeted 30 percent of investable funds to support relationships with highly mission-aligned organizations, including loans at the community level.