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- Assets: $8,962,876 (2006)
- Grants Awarded: $995,000 (2006)
A project of the Proteus Fund, the Colombe Foundation seeks "to create a peaceful world through changes in American policy." Toward this end, the Foundation supports a host of groups and programs it deems committed to bringing about "the elimination of weapons of mass destruction; a shift from war and aggression to conflict prevention and conflict resolution; and a shift from wasteful military spending to investments in programs addressing poverty, environmental degradation and other root causes of violence." These objectives are based on the premise that the United States is naturally inclined to pursue war rather than peace; that current U.S. policies are largely to blame for international conflicts in which it is involved; and that the widespread anti-Americanism that exists overseas is in fact a logical, justifiable response to American transgressions.
Established in Delaware in 1996 and now based in Massachusetts, the Colombe Foundation is a member organization of the Peace and Security Funders Group.
The Colombe Foundation currently directs its philanthropy to three categories of U.S.-based organizations: "grassroots organizations working to educate the public and influence decision makers"; "peace advocacy organizations promoting alternative policies"; and "organizations initiating media coverage." Recent recipients of Colombe Foundation grants include: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability; the Arms Control Association; the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; Educators for Social Responsibility; the Institute for Policy Studies; the National Council of Churches; the National Priorities Project; the Peace and Security Funders Group; the Peace Action Education Fund; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Project on Defense Alternatives; the Women's Action for New Directions Education Fund; Win Without War; United for Peace and Justice; The Nation Institute; the Tides Center; September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows; the Union of Concerned Scientists; Democracy Now!; and the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies.
Among the most notable beneficiaries of the Colombe Foundation's philanthropy is the massive anti-war coalition United For Peace and Justice, led by Leslie Cagan, a longtime committed socialist who proudly aligns her politics with those of Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba.
The President of the Colombe Foundation is artist/activist Edith Allen, who is also a Board of Directors member of the Women's Action for New Directions (WAND) Education Fund. Describing the genesis and evolution of her activist career, Ms. Allen says: "My career as a peace activist began twenty years ago, when I walked into the office of WAND with a baby in my arms. I'd read The Fate of the Earth [which describes the aftermath of a hypothetical nuclear exchange between the Cold War superpowers] by Jonathan Schell, while I was pregnant, and it had moved me to tears. When I shared my despair with my minister, he suggested that I volunteer for a peace organization. . . . I did everything possible to help WAND and our local nuclear freeze group. . . . One of the inspiring people I met was Naila Bolus, . . . now the executive director of the Ploughshares Fund [an anti-war organization that has given more than $40 million in grants to leftist organizations that loudly and consistently condemn American foreign and domestic policies]. . . . When I created . . . the Colombe Foundation, I modeled it after Ploughshares: all the grants go to organizations working for peace."
The Program Director of the Colombe Foundation is Dini Merz, who also serves as the Program Director of the CarEth Foundation, and as a board member and Treasurer of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund (a small grant-making program for New England-based leftist activists seeking to promote "social change").
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