Supporting early childhood, neuroscience, and education.

Improving child and adolescent mental health.

Promoting the health of Maine’s children.

Founded on family. Focused on neuroscience, health, and education.

Neuroscience Research Promoting breakthrough research in basic and clinical neuroscience
Early Childhood Fostering lasting changes in child care and early childhood mental health
Independent School Education Developing leadership in independent school educators and administrators
Children’s Mental Health Advancing the prevention and treatment of ADHD and depression
Health of Maine’s Children Advancing the health of Maine’s children, especially their oral health

Featured Grantees

All Our Kin

Raising the quality, availability, and sustainability of family child care.

All Our Kin
Jessica Schleider, Ph.D.

Evaluation of Single-Session Interventions for Youth and Parents with Depression.

Overview
Partnership for Children’s Oral Health

Ensuring that all Maine children can grow up free from preventable dental disease.

Overview

How We Work

Inspired by the values of our family

For generations, the Klingenstein family has valued family involvement, patience and discipline, scientific research, measurable results, the advice of experts, and the joy that comes from helping make a difference in people’s lives.

Tackling important issues to benefit people

Klingenstein Philanthropies is committed to helping people by supporting breakthrough research in neuroscience, and by funding programs that improve the lives of children, especially in the fields of mental health, oral health, medicine, and education.

Disciplined commitments to our areas of focus

The areas we commit to are challenging and do not lend themselves to easy answers or quick fixes. They require patience and a long-term perspective. Once the decision has been made to get involved in a field, we tend to stay the course.

Current Funding Opportunities

We’re grateful for our partners in neuroscience, children’s health, and independent education. Please look through the current funding opportunities to see if there is an opportunity for us to work together.

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NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Klingenstein-Simons Scientific Advisor Develops a “Pacemaker for the Brain” to Treat Depression

In the first study of individualized brain stimulation to treat severe depression, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, including senior author and Neuroscience Advisor Edward Chang, M.D. surgically implant a battery-operated, “pacemaker for the brain” calibrated to detect the neural activity pattern that occurs when the patient is becoming depressed then delivers pulses…

Four Former Neuroscience Fellows Selected to Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Cagla Eroglu, Ph.D., Chenghua Gu, Ph.D., Daniel Kronauer, Ph.D., and Kay Tye, Ph.D. have been selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigators representing outstanding science from across the United States. HHMI Investigators are widely known for their scientific discoveries, their innovation, and their success in tackling the most challenging problems in biomedical research. Learn…

Lessons on Child Care, From the Military

Linda Smith – Director of the Early Childhood Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, an Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund grantee – spoke with the New York Times about her work during the 1970s and 1980s improving the United States military’s underfunded and mismanaged child care system. Today, the system’s standards are considered more…