Psychedelic-Specific Foundations

The Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust is a UK philanthropic foundation established in 2011 by Max Mosley in memory of his son, providing proactive grant-making to mental health and psychedelic research causes. The Trust is a principal funder of Imperial College London's Centre for Psychedelic Research, donating over £600,000 to support landmark psilocybin studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine.

The Anne and Don Fizer Foundation is a Houston, Texas-based private charitable foundation established in memory of estate planning attorney Don E. Fizer (1942–2011) and his wife Anne, supporting philanthropy in healthcare and medical research. The foundation has contributed to psychedelic research initiatives, participating in the growing wave of private philanthropic funding for clinical studies of psychedelic-assisted therapy in the United States.

Fundación Beckley Med is a Barcelona-based psychedelic research and education organisation, partnered with the UK's Beckley Foundation, that funds and disseminates psychedelic-assisted therapy studies and provides professional training through institutional affiliations with MAPS, Grof Legacy, and CIIS. It collaborated with CITA Clinic to deliver experimental ketamine treatment to patients with treatment-resistant depression in Spain.

Fundación Beckley Med is a Barcelona-based non-profit organisation at the intersection of psychedelic science, mental health treatment, and therapist training. Founded in the spirit of Amanda Feilding's decades of work with the Oxford-based Beckley Foundation, it operates independently and offers an International Training Program in Psychedelic Therapies with institutional partnerships including MAPS, Grof Legacy, and CIIS. The foundation also conducts research into psychedelic-assisted therapy and has collaborated with the CITA Clinic to provide ketamine treatment for treatment-resistant depression.

The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (formerly NARSAD) is the world's largest private funder of psychiatric research, having awarded over $475 million to more than 5,000 scientists—including grants specifically supporting psilocybin-assisted therapy trials, ketamine research, and other innovative treatments for depression, PTSD, and schizophrenia. In 2023 alone, the foundation funded seven grants advancing psilocybin-based research and has supported over 90 ketamine-related projects, making it a cornerstone funder of emerging psychedelic science.

The Brain and Cognition Discovery Foundation (BCDF) is a Toronto-based Canadian charitable organization affiliated with University Health Network and the University of Toronto that has funded pioneering psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy trials for treatment-resistant depression, including a landmark randomized controlled trial conducted with Braxia Scientific and Usona Institute. The foundation supports research by psychiatrists including Drs. Roger McIntyre and Joshua Rosenblat, advancing psilocybin science across bipolar depression, cognitive impairment, and other hard-to-treat conditions.

The Carey and Claudia Turnbull Family Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation that has been one of the earliest and most influential funders of psychedelic medicine research, supporting psilocybin studies at NYU, Yale, and Johns Hopkins—including helping establish Yale’s psychedelic psychiatry training curriculum and endowing research at the NYU Center for Psychedelic Medicine, where Carey Turnbull chairs the advisory board. Carey Turnbull also serves as President of the Heffter Research Institute and co-founded B.More and Ceruvia Lifesciences, further extending the family’s commitment to advancing psychedelic therapies for depression, addiction, and OCD.

The Council on Spiritual Practices (CSP) is a US non-profit organisation founded in 1993 by Robert Jesse to support research and education on the safe and effective use of entheogens and primary religious experience. CSP was instrumental in initiating the landmark Johns Hopkins psilocybin research programme with Roland Griffiths, co-funding pivotal early studies on psilocybin's mystical-experience effects that re-established psychedelic science and shaped clinical frameworks globally.

The Council on Spiritual Practices Fund at the San Francisco Foundation is a named charitable fund administered through the San Francisco Foundation, a regional community foundation serving the Bay Area. It channels philanthropic resources in support of research and education on entheogenic substances and primary religious experience, extending the grant-making mission of the Council on Spiritual Practices through a community foundation structure.

Empower Psychedelics is a Canada-based non-profit conducting Health Canada-approved psychedelic-assisted group therapy research for first responders and military veterans in partnership with MAPS Canada. Founded in 2020 by former first responders, the organization received a $205K Mitacs grant with the University of Quebec in Montreal for a two-year clinical research program.

Empower Research Inc. is the corporate research entity behind Empower Psychedelics, running Health Canada-approved trials on psychedelic-assisted group therapy for first responders in partnership with MAPS Canada. The organization has also studied medically perceived benefits of psychedelics and cannabinoids among first responders and military personnel.

The Etheridge Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded by Grammy and Academy Award-winning musician Melissa Etheridge following the 2020 opioid overdose death of her son Beckett, funding scientific research into plant-medicine treatments for opioid use disorder and related mental health conditions. The Foundation has co-funded Usona Institute's 5-MeO-DMT research program and raised over $1 million at its inaugural Rock Jam gala for psychedelic medicine development.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) is a New York-based non-profit founded in 2000 by actor Michael J. Fox that has raised over $2 billion for Parkinson's disease research and treatments. MJFF has funded pioneering psychedelic research including the first psilocybin trial in a neurodegenerative disease (UCSF/Yale, for Parkinson's-related depression) and a ketamine infusion trial at Yale for treatment-resistant depression in Parkinson's patients.

The George Sarlo Foundation is the philanthropic vehicle of Holocaust survivor and Silicon Valley venture capitalist George Sarlo, who credits guided psychedelic experiences with resolving his childhood trauma and became one of the earliest major private donors to psychedelic science. The Foundation has contributed nearly $2 million to psychedelic research, including a $1 million pledge to MAPS for MDMA-assisted therapy development and grants to CIIS for psychedelic therapist diversity training.

The Antonio J. Gracias Family Foundation is a Chicago-based private philanthropic foundation established in 2021 that awarded a $16 million gift to Harvard University to fund interdisciplinary psychedelic research, including the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation (POPLAR) at Harvard Law School and the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions. With $94.6 million in assets, the foundation identifies psychedelics as a priority research area alongside quantum science and cardiovascular medicine.

Healing Hearts, Changing Minds, Inc. (HHCM) is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit grant foundation committed to trust-based philanthropy in psychedelic-assisted therapy, founded by Robert Ansin following a transformative personal psilocybin experience. The foundation has awarded over $566,000 in grants under its 'Walking Each Other Home' fund to support psilocybin and ketamine-assisted therapy in end-of-life care, including funding for war-affected Ukrainian veterans.

HumanKindLabs is a Swedish research organization founded by chemist Ulf Bremberg (Uppsala University) that catalyzes psychedelic clinical research by optimizing therapeutic protocols around set and setting. It co-coordinates PsyPal — the first EU-funded multi-site randomised trial of psilocybin therapy, a €6.5M 19-partner consortium studying psilocybin for psychological distress in palliative care patients with COPD, MS, ALS, and atypical Parkinson’s disease.

ICEERS (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service) is a Barcelona-based non-profit founded in 2009, dedicated to the scientific study and social integration of ayahuasca, iboga, and other plant medicines, with UN ECOSOC consultative status. The organization launched the first Phase II clinical trial of ibogaine for opioid dependence in 2020, has co-published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and provides harm reduction, legal support, and drug policy advocacy globally.

The Nikean Foundation is a Canadian philanthropic organization founded in 2019 by tech entrepreneur Sanjay Singhal that made a landmark CAD $5 million gift to the University Health Network (UHN) to establish the Nikean Psychedelic Psychotherapy Research Centre, funding psilocybin-assisted therapy for end-of-life distress, MDMA for PTSD, and 5-MeO-DMT research across Canada, the US, UK, and Spain in partnership with Imperial College London, MAPS, and Usona Institute.

Norrsken Mind is a Swedish philanthropic foundation launched in 2023 by the Norrsken Foundation (co-founded by Klarna's Niklas Adalberth) that has awarded over €2.2 million in grants to support psilocybin-assisted therapy research across Europe, funding clinical trials at Karolinska Institutet and Lund University and supporting the Independent Psychedelic Evidence Assessment Working Group (IPEA-WG) to develop rigorous evidence standards for psychedelic therapies.

The OPEN Foundation is a Dutch non-profit organisation that advances psychedelic research and therapy through scientific conferences, interdisciplinary research, clinician training, and public education. It organises events (including the ICPR conference), runs research and training programmes, and advocates for ethical integration of psychedelics into healthcare in the Netherlands and Europe.

The Oppenheimer Family Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research Grants is a philanthropic grant fund supporting research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care, including Dr. Yvan Beaussant's psilocybin-assisted therapy studies for demoralization and existential distress in hospice patients. The program co-funds trials alongside the Heffter Research Institute, Usona Institute, and Nikean Foundation.

Private Philanthropic Funds is a ClinicalTrials.gov funder category representing anonymous private philanthropic donors, appearing as a collaborator on Johns Hopkins University research including the Phase 1 safety study for at-home administration of microdose psilocybin (NCT06450210). The Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative (psfc.co) is the leading coordinating body for such private philanthropists dedicated to advancing psychedelic therapy research.

RiverStyx Foundation is a US-based family foundation co-directed by T. Cody Swift and Miriam Volat that has been a pioneering early funder of psychedelic research since 2008, committing over $9 million to psilocybin and MDMA trials at Johns Hopkins, NYU, Harvard, and the University of Washington; it also supports drug policy reform and Indigenous medicine conservation, and has board representation at the Heffter Research Institute.

One of the largest private philanthropic funders of psychedelic research, having committed over $60 million to the field. The Foundation's Psychedelic Research & Health Initiative supports MDMA-assisted therapy trials for veteran PTSD through MAPS, psilocybin research at Mount Sinai, and patient-assistance programs to ensure equitable access if therapies receive FDA approval.