Ploughshares Fund

The Ploughshares Fund is a public grantmaking foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and other weapons of war, and to prevent conflicts that could lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction. With over fifty million dollars awarded in grants since its founding in 1981, Ploughshares Fund is the largest U.S. philanthropic foundation focused exclusively on peace and security grantmaking.

History

Concerned about the world’s burgeoning nuclear arsenals, San Francisco philanthropist Sally Lilienthal founded the Ploughshares Fund [http://www.ploughshares.org] in 1981 to enable individual contributors to pool their resources and provide support for the most effective initiatives for preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons. In the twenty-five years since it was founded, Ploughshares has made grants totaling nearly $50 million to become one of the largest grantmaking foundations in the U.S. focusing exclusively on peace and security issues. During this time, as nuclear dangers have evolved, Ploughshares Fund has responded to new threats to global security as they have emerged: the vulnerability to theft of nuclear weapons and fissile material following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; the changing nature of armed conflict after the Cold War; emerging challenges to the nonproliferation regime; and the geopolitical upheavals in the wake of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. Sally Lilienthal passed away in October 2006, at the age of 87, while still serving as Ploughshares Fund's president.

Ploughshares Fund works to directly influence public policy on weapons and security. The Fund’s strategies include providing start-up funding for peace and security entrepreneurs; granting emergency funding to meet urgent needs; supporting advocacy programs; influencing public opinion through the media; making grants internationally; building grassroots leadership.

Issue areas

Ploughshares Fund’s grantmaking is focused on the following issues:

* Nuclear Weapons
* Nuclear Materials
* Biological and Chemical Weapons
* Missiles and Space
* Conflict Prevention

Notable grants

* Ploughshares Fund was one of the earliest and most consistent supporters of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which has led to the destruction of 38 million mines, yielded an international treaty in record time, and earned for its proponents the Nobel Peace Prize.

* Support for the Institute for Science and International Security and its President David Albright, whose work with scientists in Brazil and Argentina in the mid-1980s paved the way for those countries to renounce their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Albright continues to track nuclear-related developments worldwide and devise creative approaches for stemming proliferation.

* The first program, by William Potter at the Center For Nonproliferation Studies, to identify the foremost risks of nuclear terrorism and approaches for addressing them.

* Environmental challenges by a coalition of grassroots organizations that halted the production of nuclear weapons in the U.S.

* Programs to reorient Russian nuclear weapons facilities and scientists to productive, economically viable endeavors, including the establishment of non-proliferation centers at former nuclear weapons labs at Sarov and Snezhinsk.

* The Bioweapons Prevention Project, a network of civil society organizations monitoring governments’ adherence to the Biological Weapons Convention, in the absence of any official verification regime.

* U.S. advocacy efforts by the International Crisis Group.

* Legislative advocacy to stop the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons led by the Arms Control Advocacy Collaborative, co-founded by Ploughshares Fund and the Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation.

* The Peace and Security Initiative,involving members of advocacy organizations, think tanks, funders and activists in efforts to increase their capacity to influence U.S. policy to promote a more secure, peaceful and just world.

* Grants to Search for Common Ground and the United Nations Association of the United States for initiatives to maintain communication and engagement with Iran aimed at a peaceful, mutually acceptable resolution to the dispute of Iran’s nuclear program.

Board of Directors

* Reza Aslan
* Doug Carlston
* Michael Douglas
* Gloria Duffy
* Mary Lloyd Estrin
* Angela Foster
* Roger Hale, Chair
* David Holloway
* John Hoyt
* Richard Pritzlaff
* Robert A. Rubinstein
* Cynthia Ryan
* Gail Seneca
* Robert E. Sims
* Patricia F. Sullivan, Treasurer
* Brooks Walker III, Secretary
* Edith Wilkie
* Philip Yun

External links

* [http://www.ploughshares.org/ Ploughshares Fund]
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