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Mission
The Christensen Fund (TCF) is a private, independent foundation dedicated to assisting organizations in the visual arts, conservation science and education. The Fund currently pursues its mission by making grants to non-profit and public institutions in support of programs in visual arts and conservation science and by supporting visual arts and conservation science education through grants to educational institutions.

Program Overview
The Christensen Fund's overall interest in art, science and education is currently focused into three major areas:

Visual Arts
Conservation Science
K-12 Education related to Visual/Studio Arts or Conservation Science

Application information, including specific guidelines, application procedures and other requirements, is available for the visual arts program, science program or education program by visiting The Christensen Fund at www.christensenfund.org.

Changes Underway
The Board of The Christensen Fund has recently begun long-term strategic planning to focus and strengthen our grant making programs. We made changes to our programs and have updated these areas of the web site. The other sections are being developed and we will do our best to post the information as soon as possible.

The Founders and the 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. Two of their children, Karen Christensen and Diane Christensen, currently serve 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.

The Fund has long made larger grants to public and private schools and other organizations offering educational programs for children. In 2000, the Fund began a small grants program supporting studio art programs in both public and private K-12 schools, and in 2001 it added support for conservation science education to its school grants program.

During the mid-1990s, the Fund decided to donate its art collections to museums at which these were on loan, with the donations accelerating in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By 2002, it thereby ceased to be an operating foundation and became a private foundation, solely dedicated to grant-making.

Current Program Status
Education: The board of the Christensen Fund has recently come to the difficult decision to suspend our K-12 educational grant program for the year 2003. June 2002 was our last submission deadline for education grants to be awarded in 2002. This deadline was extended to August 2002 for applicants contacting us by June. We will no longer accept inquiries or proposals for K-12 education grants until such time as our web site at www.christensenfund.org reflects a revised policy statement. We anticipate such a statement by the end of 2003.

Under the leadership of our new executive director, the Fund will explore ways to effectively serve educational needs within our two primary focus areas of arts and conservation science related to biological systems.

Our staffing levels have not allowed us to achieve a small grants program as thoughtful and supportive as we intended. We respectfully regret our inability to continue to directly serve teachers, students and schools and will sincerely seek to find a suitable alternative solution. Please continue to visit The Christensen Fund web site at www.christensenfund.org for information updates.