Year In Review

As we reflect on a harrowing year, we are celebrating the beautiful power of showing up for each other. In 2025, in the face of widespread uncertainty and fear, our Arts, Education and Health grantees created spaces for care, connection and joy. Despite intersecting challenges, they remained true to their work and those they serve.

The impacts of sweeping federal actions threatened organizational and institutional stability, as well as personal and community safety. In January, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation dedicated $4M to our Response Fund, amounting to 15% of our overall grantmaking in 2025. This fund allowed us to be nimble and strategic and move money faster to our grantees. It also enabled us to pool resources with our peers to meet urgent needs of deeply strained organizations and to safeguard vulnerable communities.

Throughout the year, philanthropy and nonprofits coordinated and worked across issue areas in unprecedented ways. Funders united nationally to uphold fundamental rights and liberties and defend the freedom to give according to our values. We also developed response and advocacy strategies with our Bay Area and national peers.

The attacks on our constitution and federal institutions have exacted great costs to individuals, communities and trust in our democratic principles. The fields that we fund remain in crisis and nonprofits are struggling to maintain programs while meeting evolving needs. In moments like this we are called to listen, to trust the wisdom of those most affected and to act. We will continue to use our power and resources to fight back and push forward.

By acting with resolve, we stay true to our vision and values.

We are inspired by our grantees who are inviting us to imagine a future that reflects our highest values and shared aspirations even amid significant uncertainty. Their community-led solutions are taking root and offering pathways toward a more creative, healthy, humane society. Nonprofits and philanthropy are poised to seed and advance these ideas, because that is at the heart of what we do.

The year’s events, and our collective response to them, have crystallized the importance of connecting the Rainin Foundation to its broader civic value. By acting with resolve, we stay true to our vision and values. We remain focused on advancing our mission and creating a fair and just future for all.

We are grateful to all the artists helping us see our shared humanity, the educators and adults supporting children in learning to read, and the scientists researching treatments and cures for chronic disease. As we face the challenges and opportunities ahead, we will find our way forward together, with you.