Grants

What We Fund

Earth Awareness Mindfulness and Meditation

Those of us living in this time in history face many challenges. The BESS Family Foundation is focused on addressing the challenges associated with the ecological crisis, climate change, and environmental justice. We are committed to building an anti-racist community of deep practitioners who use mainstream mindfulness, Buddhist meditation practices, and Indigenous earth-based practices to play a positive role in helping individuals cope with challenges and work toward solutions that benefit all beings.

We support organizations who work with experienced practitioners to explore questions like these:

• Can mindfulness-based practices include a wake-up call toward relating to our situation skillfully and actively?
• How can earth awareness help to foster positive tipping points?
• How can mindfulness and meditation practices help people to cope with the climate catastrophe without succumbing to blame, anger and hopelessness?

Examples of the types of projects we support include:

• Mindfulness and meditation courses focused on eco-dharma, climate grief, and nature connection
• Infrastructure updates for retreat centers to become more responsive and resilient to climate change
• Earth awareness retreats for both seasoned and new practitioners
• Programs that bring contemplative practice into environmental activism and community-based climate education
• Retreat centers who are offering earth awareness and/or climate responsiveness/resilience programming
• Tribal Nations mindfulness

Interested in inquiring about funding for your program or project? We welcome you to send us an email of interest, describing your program and outlining your needs: info@bessfoundation.org