Focus Areas

Edgy Arts

We focus our arts-funding on providing Bay Area audiences relevant, enlightening, intimate and high-quality arts experiences. We partner with creative leaders in the Bay Area, supporting their missions to bring diverse, under-represented, emerging artistic talent to audiences and to the public eye. RHE Charitable Foundation shares these organizations’ goal of increasing audiences attending and participating in the arts.

Human Resilience

We partner with nonprofits that provide for our challenged community members. Human Resilience is empowered through education, housing and social services, mental health and addiction-recovery services, and self-esteem building partnerships and mentorship. Our Executive Director witnessed remarkable human resilience when serving as a counselor for Swords to Plowshares housing program.

The Environment

We support a selected number of Northern California’s stewards of the environment. These leaders and their nonprofit organizations deftly watch after and advocate to preserve our region’s natural treasures through habitat preservation, conservation research, partnership-building and environmental advocacy, environmental science and environmental education. Our future depends on kids and families getting outdoors today.

Mission Statement

RHE Charitable Foundation’s Mission is to extend the legacy of compassion and generosity created by its founder, Richard Henry Epstein.

We provide grants to organizations whose work we admire.

We are particularly interested in:
– Protection of lands and waters that serve to enrich the lives of all creatures, including us.
– Restoration of human resilience
– Cultivation of edgy arts

Partnerships

Swords to Plowshares
When Their Service Ends, Our (or Their) Mission Begins: War causes wounds and suffering that last beyond the battlefield. Swords to Plowshares’ mission is to heal the wounds, to restore dignity, hope, and self-sufficiency to all veterans [...]
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to conserve the lands and [...]
Playwrights Foundation
Playwrights Foundation is one of RHE’s first grantees. As a center for new play development that supports and champions contemporary playwrights in the creation of new works to sustain theater as a vital, dynamic art [...]

Berkeley Repertory Theater

Berkeley Repertory Theatre seeks to set a national standard for ambitious programming, engagement with its audiences, and leadership within the community in which it resides. We endeavor to create a diverse body of work that expresses a rigorous, embracing aesthetic and reflects the highest artistic standards, and seek to maintain [...]

Edgy Arts|

Bouquets to Art

An enchanting annual springtime tradition, when gifted floral designers bring their imaginative interpretations to works in the de Young’s permanent collection. Whether quirky, stunning, or simply beautiful, the designs are always captivating. The weeklong event also features an Opening Night Gala and Preview, floral design demonstrations by prominent floral designers, [...]

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California Academy of Sciences

Academy exhibits engage visitors on important science topics. Seismic activity is a fact of life in the Bay Area, and since May 2012, visitors from around the world have had the chance to delve into the science of our dynamic planet. A walk-through model of the Earth, a Shake House [...]

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