Funder Spotlight: How the Hemera Foundation Promotes Buddhist Practice and Supports Children

We periodically publish quick overviews of grantmakers on our radar, looking at recent developments and key details about how they operate. Today, we’re taking a look at the Hemera Foundation, a Bermuda-based philanthropic organization operating in Boulder, Colorado, as Hemera Regnant LLC, which plans to spend down its $32.9 million endowment by 2032.

I came across the foundation earlier this year during a chat with Gary Steuer, the president and CEO of Denver’s Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, which partnered with Hemera to create Arts in Society, a program that supports the connection between the arts and other civic issues. A deeper dive reveals that the arts is but one facet of the mission of the Hemera Foundation, which is driven by Buddhist thought and teachings and draws its name from the Greek goddess of day. Here are a few things to know about this spirituality-guided spend-down foundation.

Its founder is inspired by Buddhist teachings

Hemera was founded in 2007 by Caroline Pfohl, who is also the spiritual director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, a Boulder-based community of meditators who practice in the lineage of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa.

Dharma Ocean’s site notes that Pfohl grew up in a Catholic family and was exposed to a variety of wisdom traditions from an early age. She lived and traveled extensively in Asia, attended her first meditation retreats as a teenager in Singapore and practiced with Daoist and Qigong masters. Pfohl has also worked in business and nongovernmental organizations, including the United Nations and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Pfohl served as the chair of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, which is dedicated to fostering an appreciation for Chinese culture and the application of Buddhist insights in contemporary life. In addition to these, other prominent, Buddhist-inspired foundations include the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism (Los Angeles), Kalliopeia Foundation (Inverness, California) and the Tsadra Foundation (New York City).

It’s something of a black box

As noted, Hemera operates as an LLC. Philanthropists typically choose the structure because it allows them to move money for charitable, political and for-profit outfits through a single entity without having to meet payout requirements or publicly disclose grantees the way foundations do on Form 990s. Some of the biggest names in philanthropy — such as Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Laura and John Arnold, Laurene Powell Jobs and Pierre Omidyar — give through LLCs.

But what the philanthropist gains in flexibility the general public tends to lose in transparency, especially if the entity doesn’t maintain a grants database or otherwise has a relatively low public footprint.

With Hemera, this limits what we know about the full extent of its funding. But I did find out that Hemera has made grants to Dharma Gates in Brooklyn, the Middleway Initiative in Wheeling, West Virginia, for its “Open Questions” podcast, and to the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs to support children’s healthy development. Hemera also joined the Ford Foundation to support the development of a Philanthropy Northwest guide laying out “four methods of reflective practice” to help philanthropy leaders advance change and better assist grantees.

Its top funding areas are contemplative practices, and children and families

While my emails to the foundation were not returned, I was able to glean a substantial amount of information from Hemera’s website. The foundation promotes contemplative practices inspired by Buddhist teachings that “enhance self-awareness and promote compassionate, empathetic, and supportive relationships.” It also emphasizes “programs that focus on the healthy development of children and adolescents.” Comprising 34% of total funding, “children and families” has been the top funding area since the foundation’s inception. Grantees include FocusedKids, which teaches children mindful self-regulation skills, and study abroad provider IES Abroad.

Meanwhile, 30% of funding has flowed to what the foundation calls “contemplative practices.” Centered on Buddhist traditions and teachings, this area encompasses several focus areas, including Contemplative Practice Fellowships, which provide,,,, financial support to fellows attending a retreat at one of 10 partner centers (individuals can apply by checking with the individual retreat centers for availability); the Tara Project, which supports women communicating Buddhist wisdom; and Healthy Buddhist Communities, which aims to strengthen ethical policies and practices, improve supervision and support for teachers, and develop strategies to reduce the potential for abuse in Buddhist communities.

Speaking with “Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly” about the Healthy Buddhist Communities initiative, Pfohl said that in response to “recent reports of misconduct” in Buddhist communities, “We want to offer a collection of resources that communities of all lineages can draw on.”

Finally, “fellowships” and “arts and culture” were tied for Hemera’s third-largest focus area at 11% of total giving each. Regarding the latter, Hemera has provided multi-year grants to Grantmakers in the Arts, supported A Blade of Grass’ Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art, and bankrolled the creation of “Diving Into Racial Equity: The MAP Fund’s Exploration,” a 2019 report by the MAP Fund that examined its efforts to advance racial equity in the performing arts.

Like many funders, Hemera does not accept unsolicited grant requests, although organizations approached by the foundation may receive a number of types of support. For new relationships, the foundation awards one-time Initial Support grants of up to $25,000 in general operating support. The foundation also offers project grants of up to $75,000 that align with its focus areas. Organizations may be awarded multiple grants in this category. In addition, organizations that receive Initial Support or project grants may receive multi-year Partnership grants aimed at addressing a specific challenge that aligns with the foundation’s focus areas.

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It plans to spend down in nine years

Pfohl established the Hemera Foundation with the intention of spending it down within 25 years. While I was unable to determine the size of the foundation’s initial corpus, I do know that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen 166% since Hemera’s founding in 2007. Assuming its endowment grew at a commensurate rate, numbers provided by the foundation show why some small funders with low overhead, to quote the familiar adage, can’t give away money fast enough.

The foundation has disbursed $32.5 million since its inception. That comes out to $2 million a year for the past 16 years. As of June 2019, it still had approximately $32.9 million left in the endowment. This means the foundation will have to ramp up its annual disbursements to approximately $3.7 million a year — depending on market conditions, naturally — to meet its spend-down goal nine years from now.

The foundation acknowledges this fact on its site, stating, “Although Hemera does not have any specific annual spending targets, we tend to average commitments totaling between $2.0 million and $4.0 million a year and will continue that pace as long as the assets will allow.”

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