We love historical markers...and this site is one of them. Please visit Quixote Foundation's new website for current information.

Quix Facts

Media contacts: Lenore Hanisch, co-executive director, lenore -at- quixotefoundation -dot- org; June Wilson, co-executive director, june -at- quixotefoundation -dot- org

Mission: Quixote Foundation wants to see free people in fair societies on a healthy planet

Interest areas: U.S. media reform, election integrity, reproductive rights and environmental equity

Founded: 1997 in Madison, Wisconsin by Arthur Stuart Hanisch

Board of Directors: Erik Hanisch, president; Lenore Hanisch, June Wilson

Staff: Lenore Hanisch and June Wilson, co-executive directors; Aana Lauckhart, partnership and outreach director

Assets: $15,588,000 as of December 31, 2009

Annual grantmaking: Between $1 million and $1.2 million annually from 2006-2009

2010 grantmaking budget: $1.4 million

Total grantmaking inception through 2009: $9,657,718

Geographic reach: Giving nationally throughout the U.S.

Sample grants:

  • Environmental Equity:  $80,000 to the Center for Social Inclusion.  Black, Brown and Green: A Convening gathered a racially diverse, multi-disciplinary brain trust of experts to develop a white paper for the new presidential administration, and for the field, on support for community-level alternative energy businesses.  CSI has a strong focus on the intersection between racial justice, economic power and the green economy going beyond jobs and climate change legislation.
  • Reproductive Rights:  $600,000 over 3 years to Legal Voice (formerly NW Women’s Law Center).  The Community Voices program engaged selected Puget Sound–area activists and lawyers to envision new law, public policy and public messaging strategies grounded in societal values that fully honor and assure the full range of reproductive choices people might make.
  • Election Integrity:  $100,000 to support the Election Verification Network via fiscal sponsors Electronic Frontier Foundation and Verified Voting Foundation. EVN seeks to make sure every person’s vote in all U.S. elections is recorded correctly and counted accurately for fair results the public can verify.  Participants are nonpartisan individuals and organizations working at the federal, state and local levels to advance this goal.
  • Media Reform:  $100,000 over 2 years to support Media Democracy Fund (via fiscal sponsor Proteus Fund). MDF is a strategic grant making collaborative that understands the future of technology and communications. MDF supports organizations advocating for the public’s rights in the digital age, promoting a diversity of viewpoints and an open, accessible Internet.