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Philanthropy and RAND

RAND has always been dedicated to serving the public interest through our research and analysis. And over the course of six decades, we have expanded our reach beyond questions of national security to include the challenges of education, health, poverty, justice, the environment, and more. And we examine those issues as they confront the United States and communities around the world.

We have not always looked to the philanthropic community to support our work as we do today.

Early in our 60-year history as a nonprofit research institution, we enjoyed generous support from government sponsors dedicated to the principle that knowledge was best produced by objective researchers given the flexibility to explore big questions and take a long-term perspective on those questions. This approach paid off handsomely for the United States and for the world. And RAND invested what it earned in growing an enterprise that is simultaneously broad in scope, multidisciplinary in approach, international in reach, and unparalleled in quality.

In recent decades, government’s appetite for analysis of our greatest domestic and national security challenges has waned, although the policy decisions we confront are becoming more complex, and the decisions themselves bear upon the quality of all our lives. At a time when creative, crosscutting solutions are needed most, the resources to carry out that work are increasingly difficult to come by through client-sponsored research.

RAND remains committed to taking on the big questions, applying the long view, and attracting and engaging the most talented individuals to be a part of that effort. It is the generous support of philanthropists who believe that objective and rigorous analysis is a prerequisite for quality decisionmaking that helps RAND continue working in this tradition.

About RAND

RAND has been expanding the boundaries of human knowledge for 60 years. An independent, nonprofit institution with a research staff consisting of some of the world's preeminent minds, RAND provides research and analysis that keeps policymakers ahead of the curve on the issues that matter most, such as health care, education, national security, civil justice, the environment, and more. No other institution tackles tough policy problems across so broad a spectrum.

The confidence and generosity of philanthropic supporters enable RAND to conduct groundbreaking research on the most pressing policy issues of our time and support a research faculty that keeps policymakers ahead of the curve on the issues that matter most, such as health care, education, national security, civil justice, the environment, and more.