The Walt Disney Company
/OVERVIEW: The Walt Disney Company’s corporate social responsibility program supports environmental and wildlife conservation, children’s health and education.
IP TAKE: Disney conducts its philanthropy mainly through existing relationships and signature programs and does not provide a clear avenue for prospective grantees to get in touch.
The Walt Disney Company does not appear to accept applications for funding and tends to work through pre-existing relationships and signature programs. This large corporate funder does not provide a clear avenue for getting in touch. General inquiries may be made via email.
While this is a supportive funder for those who secure funding here, it’s rather bureaucratic and inaccessible.
PROFILE: Headquartered in Burbank, California, the entertainment giant Walt Disney’s social responsibility program works in the areas of environmental and wildlife conservation, children’s health and education. The organization makes environmental grants through the Disney Conservation Fund, which is “committed to saving wildlife and building a global community inspired to protect the magic of nature.” Its health funding mainly supports children’s hospitals through donations and Disney-themed “wish-granting” programs. Disney also supports K-12 education via its Investments in Youth program.
Grants for Animal Welfare and Wildlife
With its long tradition of producing animated features about animals, it is no surprise that Disney’s philanthropy would focus on animal welfare and wildlife conservation. The conservation fund works “to support a global community dedicated to ensuring a world where people and wildlife thrive together.” Most grants support species and habitat conservation programs directly, but funding has also gone to education and awareness programs around the world. Recent wildlife grantees include India’s TREE Foundation, which aims to protect sea turtles from dangerous commercial fishing practices, and Brazil’s Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas, which aims to protect and expand the habitats of black lion tamarin and provide conservation education and training to local communities. In the U.S., Disney has funded an Audubon Florida program to research breeding habits of the endemic Florida scrub jay.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Justice
Disney’s environmental conservation grantmaking aims to “save wildlife, inspire action and protect the planet.” While the program’s focus is species conservation, some grants go to land and other environmental conservation organizations. Disney’s funding priorities in this area include “community conservation efforts” and projects that inspire Disney’s family audiences to take action toward conservation. Recent past grantees include the Association of Zoological Horticulture, which supports plant conservation programs in the South Pacific, and ZSL Nepal, which supports parks and preserves in the wake of natural disasters. Another grantee, the Mangrove Action Project, used Disney funding to translate and implement curricula on mangrove preservation for students in Suriname.
Grants for Public Health
Disney’s public health philanthropy focuses on children’s hospitals and wish granting for chronically and terminally ill children. In 2018, Disney committed $100 million to a signature program to “reimagine the patient journey in children’s hospitals.” The program involved research on how to manage children’s stress and piloted Disney-themed hospital experiences at Texas Children’s Hospital. Disney’s wish-granting program serves over 11,000 children each year, providing Disney-themed experiences, movies, gifts and character visits for sick children around the world.
Grants for K-12 Education
Disney’s Investment in Youth program aims to support the “next generation of innovators and storytellers” through transformative programs in STEAM disciplines and theater. Grantees have included FIRST, a robotics education program and competition, and Snap the Gap, a program that aims to close the gender gap in technology achievement. In theater, Disney has run a signature program, Disney Musicals in Schools, which brings theater programs to underserved elementary schools in the U.S. and the U.K. Another signature program, Young Storytellers, provides students with Disney mentors who advise them in writing and theatrical production.
Important Grant Details:
In a recent year, the Walt Disney Company made over $300 million in charitable contributions. Its conservation program makes about $6 million a year in grants, with an average grant size of about $75,000. Information about past grantmaking is available at individual program pages and its annual CSR report.
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