The Cypress Fund is a new foundation, seeking to increase safety and stability in the post-9/11 world. Severe challenges to peace and security face us in the new international landscape:

	Global networks of violence threaten to undermine the security of individual states, while the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) outpaces the Cold War treaty mechanisms designed to control them.
	In failed and authoritarian states around the world, citizens lack access to even the most rudimentary forms of democratic expression, creating situations ripe for bitter intergroup and civic rivalries, and setting the stage for cultures of violence.
	Regional and international organizations lack the strength and coordination to control sectarian violence in areas like the Middle East and South Asia, genocide in areas like Congo and Sudan, and large-scale social disintegration in parts of Africa riven by the AIDS epidemic.

The Cypress Fund, recognizing these realities, focuses primarily on preventing conflict in an unstable world. The Cypress Fund believes that creating new ideas, institutions, and practices for preventing deadly conflict, and reducing the spread of WMD, are within our reach and will not always require governmental action or massive expenditures.


We focus our work in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and peacebuilding.

We support non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that mediate between citizens and governments, to change societies and defuse violence in unstable regions of the world. This work, unfolding at the intersections of conflict resolution, democracy building, security, development, and rule of law, helps create new ideas, social networks, and pockets of safety that can prevail against forces of violence. A priority of our work, whether in the academic or NGO sector, is the development of theory, best practices, and new understanding about safety and security for today and tomorrow.

In our grantmaking, we seek to give long-term, reliable institutional support to NGOs working in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and peacebuilding. The Cypress Fund believes that such funding has become rare, and our goal is to free organizations from some of the constraints of constant fundraising, to focus on their vital work.

For more information about our central mission, click here for the concept paper and executive summary