Boldly Go: For the Roddenberry Foundation, Star Trek’s Philosophy Isn’t Just for the 23rd Century
/
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (SECOND FROM RIGHT) with NASA officials and Star Trek actors at Dryden Flight Research Center in 1976. Photo courtesy of the Roddenberry Foundation.
It’s been 55 years since “Star Trek” made its U.S. television debut on NBC on September 8, 1966. The brainchild of writer-producer Gene Wesley Roddenberry, “Star Trek” and its spinoffs and film iterations have stood the test of time. Even this writer—who admittedly is more partial to “Star Wars”—has a warm spot for “Star Trek: First Contact,” one of the smartest time travel films of all time.
“Star Trek” is also known for its strong vision of equity and diversity, headlined by characters like Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, played by LeVar Burton; Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, played by George Takei; and Chief Communications Officer Nyota Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols—one of the first Black women in a lead role on a television series. Star Trek also inspired real-world technology and encouraged countless fans to get into STEM careers.
Gene Roddenberry passed away in 1991, having earned an estimated $500 million, according to Fortune.
Gene’s son Rod and Rod’s wife Heidi launched the Roddenberry Foundation in 2010 to continue the Roddenberry legacy. The foundation primarily works in areas like human and civil rights, the environment and education through four key initiatives—the +1 Global Fund, the Roddenberry Fellowship, the Catalyst fund and the Roddenberry Prize. Its ultimate goal is to “empower opportunities for original thinkers, activists and innovators from all walks of life to pursue significant, lasting change.”
A few weeks ago, the Roddenberry Foundation announced its “Boldly Go” campaign to celebrate the legacy of Gene Roddenberry on what would’ve been his 100th year of life. The campaign will tap digital art to raise funds for nonprofit organizations whose work aligns with values of diversity, inclusion and progress.
I recently caught up with Rod Roddenberry and the foundation’s CEO Lior Ipp to find out more about what’s new at the foundation, including its new innovative campaign.
A Star Trek philosophy
“I’m not sure how familiar you are with IDIC, or ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations,’” began Rod Roddenberry on our recent Zoom call. IDIC comes from the philosophy of the Vulcans, a fictional extraterrestrial humanoid species in the “Star Trek” universe and media franchise.
Normally, philanthropic origin stories don’t begin like this.
“At that point [in the “Star Trek” universe], we as humans had come together and no longer feared the differences between us. We actually realized that it is those differences that are special. And we were now thirsting and craving for intelligent beings elsewhere who looked at things differently because we knew this is how we would evolve,” Roddenberry said.
For Roddenberry, the principles that his father infused into the series are also principles that animate the family’s philanthropy. The foundation started with a fairly traditional grantmaking approach, giving money to larger organizations. Early on, it partnered with biomedical organization Gladstone Institutes, which it continues to support to this day. The foundation also once worked with XPRIZE and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), where it supported research around turning wastewater into fresh drinking water.
Over time, Roddenberry turned his attention to tackling problems on the ground, which could then escalate to impact at the systemic level. “These problems are gigantic, and we want to make sure we’re not redundant… some of our programs, we are finding individuals who are in their community, tackling issues like social justice or immigrant rights,” Roddenberry said. “Hopefully, they are setting up a model that can be replicated.”
Supporting activists and leaders on the ground
The Roddenberry Fellowship, a 12-month program awarding $50,000 to take an existing initiative (e.g., a campaign or organization) to the next level or launch a new initiative, is geared toward U.S.-based activists. The foundation’s +1 Global Fund, meanwhile, started as a COVID relief program and focuses on small organizations working with vulnerable communities around the world. The $1 million Roddenberry Prize is mainly for established organizations with longer track records.
Roddenberry Fellows in 2021 include Aideé Granados, who founded Rosa Es Rojo, Inc., a nonprofit educating Latina women on wellness and cancer prevention, following the death of her grandmother, mother, father and stepmother from cancer. There’s also Chicago South Side native Derrius Quarles, who runs BREAUX Capital, the first cooperatively owned and operated financial services platform and community for Black men.
As far as the ideal fellow, Roddenberry told me, “You don’t have to necessarily dazzle me with big words and flashy things. Show me that you’ve thought about it. Show me that you’re excited and passionate about it and that you really want to have what I’m going to call a ‘Star Trek future.’”
Besides Rod and Heidi Roddenberry, the foundation also is led by chief executive officer Lior Ipp, who came to the foundation in 2014. Ipp was once CEO of Breakthrough Collaborative and spent more than a half-decade leading Ashoka’s global programming.
The foundation has a small staff and a board made up of both family members and non-family members—a philanthropic USS Enterprise, if you will. “We’re particularly engaged in trying to be as proactive as possible instead of reactive, and thinking about how we can address issues that are relevant to the world,” Ipp said.
The Roddenberry Catalyst + program, for instance, focused on the 7 million young Americans of color set to turn 18 by Election Day 2020, awarding grants between $500 and $10,000 to organizations, teams and individuals across the country engaged in voter registration and education.
Hearkening back to the early days of “Star Trek,” Ipp noted that while progress has been made, some of the same intractable issues of bigotry and inequity that were around in the 1960s still exist today. “You’d think we would have done a better job in the last 55 or 60 years… but we clearly haven’t, so they’re still relevant. We’re still dealing with them. But there’s an opportunity for us to be catalytic,” Ipp said.
Bringing NFTs to fundraising
The Roddenberry Foundation hopes its new “Boldly Go” campaign will be similarly catalytic. In partnership with Paramount+, the global campaign calls upon “Star Trek” fans and citizens around the world to submit photos and videos describing their hopes for the next 100 years. The foundation will work with graphics technology company OTOY and digital artists to combine submissions into a piece of artwork that will be made available to the public and auctioned to generate funds for nonprofits that will receive all proceeds. The artwork will also be incorporated into one non-fungible token (NFT) that will be sold at auction, but may also be used in the future for other charitable purposes.
In 2022, the foundation will even launch this artwork into space via a network of satellites, befitting its “Star Trek” legacy.
It also stands to reason that a sci-fi infused foundation—Ipp tells me 99.9 percent of its gifts are from their endowment from Gene Roddenberry—might want to wade into the world of NFTs. Non-fungible tokens are anything digital, such as drawings or music. Of late, they’re a rising force in the art world, and just like cryptocurrency, either a bold new frontier or a whole bunch of hoopla depending on who you ask. (In the pro column, some 12-year-old coder made more than $5 million in 3 weeks with an NFT collection).
Ipp calls this move an experiment, but believes that anything that repurposes dollars toward philanthropic purposes is a good thing. The Roddenberry Foundation itself only has so many resources, but this campaign allows it to draw in more funds to advance its mission. “The themes that we’re seeing through the campaign, and the way people are expressing themselves in their submissions will go directly to the things that they care about: justice, greater inclusivity, and equity,” Ipp said.
