Get Involved: Why Give?
Why does the RAND Corporation, the original think tank, an institution that has a half-century relationship with the U.S. government and with numerous clients in the public and private sectors, urgently need philanthropic support? It's a question I'm often asked.
The answer is: RAND needs philanthropic support to conduct research in the public interest that is not funded by its clients.
— James A. Thomson, RAND President Emeritus
RAND has always used its own resources—endowment or fees earned on its contracts—to support a modest portion of our research activity. We've tackled issues that were important to the nation but for which we had no client funding, to integrate more narrowly focused client-sponsored research, and to make research findings more readily accessible to the general public.
RAND's Contributions Through Independent Research
- In the mid-1980s, we used RAND endowment to model the AIDS epidemic before it emerged on the public health radar screen.
- In the same period, we supported work on the political and economic situation in Eastern Europe and maintained a cadre of experts in this area. Their knowledge was invaluable to U.S. government officials adapting to new political realities after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
- RAND funds built a database that profiles terrorist activities and modes of operating. Investigators draw upon this unique resource after terrorist incidents. In the process of building it, we established terrorism as a scholarly discipline and trained many current experts.
- We helped underwrite research on preventing drugs and crime and supported analyses that illuminated the trade-offs between various policies—for example, the reduction in drug use resulting from treatment or imprisonment of addicts.
- RAND endowment supported analyses of the economic progress of immigrants and the savings behavior of the elderly—work that is informing current debates.
- RAND-sponsored work synthesizing three decades of research on the quality of health care helped put quality on the national policy agenda and shaped the discussion about how quality can be measured and improved.
Learn more about issues and topics being addressed by RAND-initiated research
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2012 RAND Corporation.