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We believe change is always happening. The question is whether we help shape it.
The Change Happens Foundation invests in people and organizations turning curiosity into knowledge, potential into opportunity, and abundance into nourishment. We fund environmental science that helps us understand and protect the natural world. We fund STEM education that shows girls and young women they belong among the builders, inventors, and discoverers of tomorrow. We fund direct food rescue that carries good food to the tables that need it most, today.
Our partners work on a national scale and in the communities we know best, across Iowa, the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara, and Puget Sound. Wherever they work, we look for the same things: courage to try something new, the humility to collaborate, and a clear line between effort and impact.
We know no single grant changes the world. But a field study can shift how a landscape is managed. A girl who builds her first circuit can redefine what she believes is possible. A rescued meal can carry a family through a hard week. Change happens one step at a time, and we are honored to take those steps alongside the people doing the work.
Our Pillars
Human Services
Nourishing Communities
No one should go hungry in a country that wastes so much good food. We support direct food rescue: organizations that recover surplus food from farms, grocers, restaurants, and producers, and deliver it quickly and with dignity to the people who need it. We look for programs with strong logistics, deep community partnerships, and a clear record of meals reaching tables. We are especially interested in efforts that can grow, recovering more food and reaching more neighbors each year. Our focus is direct service rather than policy or advocacy: the work of feeding people today, one rescued meal at a time.
Education
Building Tomorrow's Scientists
Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not. We support STEM education programs that help girls and young women see themselves as scientists, engineers, inventors, and problem solvers. We look for learning that is active and real: students building, testing, failing, and trying again until something works. We value programs that reach girls early and stay with them, that connect them with mentors who share their experiences, and that open doors in communities where those doors have too often stayed closed. When a young woman discovers she can design the solution, she carries that confidence into every classroom, career, and community she enters.
Environmental Science
Knowledge That Protects
Every good decision about our planet begins with understanding it. We support organizations that generate, share, and apply environmental science: research that reveals how ecosystems work, monitoring that tracks how they are changing, and community science that invites everyday people to observe and contribute. We are especially drawn to work that puts knowledge into the hands of those who can act on it, whether land managers, farmers, educators, or neighbors. We look for rigorous science with a clear path to impact, and for partners who believe that curiosity, carefully pursued, is one of the most powerful tools we have for protecting the natural world.