The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is an American family run foundation based in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. The foundation funds early childhood education programs in Oakland, various arts programs around the San Francisco Bay Area, and research into inflammatory bowel disease.

History

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation was founded in 2007 by Kenneth Rainin, founder of Rainin Instrument Company, which sold a mainstream brand of laboratory pipettes. Rainin donated a substantial part of his fortune to a variety of causes during his lifetime. He supported the

San Francisco Ballet San Francisco Ballet is the oldest ballet company in the United States, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Franc ...

, where he served as chairman of the executive committee. Rainin also supported research at

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

and Cleveland Clinic Foundation into the causes of

Crohn's disease Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, abdominal distension ...

and

colitis Colitis is swelling or inflammation of the large intestine ( colon). Colitis may be acute and self-limited or long-term. It broadly fits into the category of digestive diseases. In a medical context, the label ''colitis'' (without qualification) ...

and other intestinal disorders. He 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. The foundation is a family run organization. Jennifer Rainin, Kenneth Rainin's daughter, has served as CEO since its public launch in 2009.

Grants

Arts

The foundation provides support for small and mid-sized performing and multidisciplinary arts organizations in the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

. In the past groups and organizations such the

American Conservatory Theater The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a nonprofit theater company in San Francisco, California, United States, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. It also has an attached acting school. History The Ameri ...

Magic Theatre The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront. The Magic Theatre is well known and respected for its singular focus on the development and product ...

, and

Shotgun Players The Shotgun Players is a California East Bay regional theatre group located in Berkeley, California. It runs 6 to 7 productions per season. Its main stage is the Ashby Stage located in the Lorin District near the Ashby BART station. About The ...

have received grants from the Foundation. With funds from the Rainin Foundation,

SFFILM SFFILM, formerly known as The San Francisco Film Society, is a nonprofit arts organization located in San Francisco, California, that presents year-round programs and events in film exhibition, media education, and filmmaker services. The Execut ...

(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 SFFILM's 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 Stabilization Trust (a nonprofit real estate holding company that purchases property in the Bay Area and provides leases for the exclusive use of arts organizations.) The Rainin Foundation awarded $5 million in seed funding to launch the organization. Community Arts Stabilization Trust successes to date include purchasing and renovating spaces for two San Francisco arts organizations, the Luggage Store Gallery, a multidisciplinary art gallery, 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. In December 2016, Oakland Mayor

Libby Schaaf Elizabeth Beckman Schaaf (born November 12, 1965) is an American politician who has been Mayor of Oakland, California since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served on the Oakland City Council. Schaaf won the November 4, 20 ...

announced that the

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, commonly known as the Hewlett Foundation, is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Redington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1966. The Hewlett Foundation aw ...

and Rainin Foundation would provide funds for a financial and technical assistance program to help arts organizations facing displacement in Oakland. In May 2020, a coalition of private donors, foundations, and the City of Oakland launched a relief fund with $625,000 for artists and culture workers living in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. The Kenneth Rainin Foundation made the announcement, noting that at least $300,000 of the fund would be dedicated specifically to residents of 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 Oakland Unified School District is a public education school district that operates a total of 80 elementary schools (TK–5), middle schools (6–8), and high schools (9–12). There are also 28 district-authorized charter schools in Oaklan ...

up to third grade. The foundation implements ''SEEDS of Learning'' in the Oakland Unified School District. Originally developed at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, 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 The Bay Area Council is a business association in San Francisco, founded in 1945, and dedicated to economic development in the San Francisco Bay Area. At its inception in the post WWII years, members included Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the Tran ...

Children's Hospital Oakland UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland formerly known as Children's Hospital Oakland, is a pediatric acute care hospital located in Oakland, California. The hospital has 191 beds and is affiliated with the UCSF School of Medicine. The hospital pr ...

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (also known as GSP) is an advertising agency based in San Francisco. History The agency was founded on April 15, 1983 as Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein by Jeff Goodby, Andy Berlin and Rich Silverstein. Andy Berlin lef ...

and others on the project. The foundation also partnered with

NORC at the University of Chicago NORC at the University of Chicago is one of the largest independent social research organizations in the United States. Established in 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, its corporate headquarters is located in downtown Chicago, with o ...

to conduct a survey of over 400 low-income families in Oakland, including understanding parenting behaviors and reading habits.

Health

The Foundation's health program supports 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 accelerating innovations to improve treatments for IBD. Recipients of grants include research institutions, such as

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

Weill Cornell Medicine The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with NewY ...

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...

, and

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. In 2017, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation launched an online resource to inspire collaboration in IBD research. The website features the work of dedicated investigators and highlights projects and ideas, with the goal of opening opportunities for researchers and clinicians to connect and nurture discoveries. In April 2018, the Helmsley Trust and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation co-hosted a workshop for researchers and stakeholders to discuss the role of diet, nutrition, and the microbiome in preventing and treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Key findings from the workshop with an emphasis on gaps in knowledge, potential answers to address these gaps, and priorities for future research were included a summary report, ''Evolving Research: Diet, the Microbiome, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The Organizations established in 2009 Development charities based in the United States Organizations based in California