The Bernard Osher Foundation

Welcome

The Bernard Osher Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, was started in 1977 by Bernard Osher, a respected businessman and community leader. The Foundation seeks to improve quality of life through support for higher education and the arts.

The Foundation provides post-secondary scholarship funding to colleges and universities across the nation, with special attention to reentry students. It also supports a national lifelong learning network for seasoned adults. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes, operating on the campuses of 125 institutions of higher education from Maine to Hawaii and Alaska, have a National Resource Center at Northwestern University. In addition, the Foundation benefits programs in integrative health in the United States and Sweden, including centers at the University of California, San Francisco; Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston; the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; Northwestern University; Vanderbilt University; the University of Miami; the University of Washington; the University of Cincinnati; the University of Wisconsin-Madison; the University of Utah; and the University of Vermont. Finally, an array of performing arts organizations, museums, and educational programs in Northern California and in Mr. Osher's native state of Maine receive Foundation grants.

The Foundation has a nine-member Board of Directors, chaired by the Honorable Barbro Osher, Honorary Consul General of Sweden in California.