For more than 30 years, The Dorrance Family Foundation has dedicated its resources to improving communities and the environment through education and natural resource conservation. This three-generation foundation is led by its founders, Jacquie and Bennett Dorrance, their children, Bennett Dorrance Jr. and Ashley Kaplan, and a recently established G3 Youth Board. Their work supports various sectors, including children’s health, animal welfare, sustainable agriculture and natural resource conservation in Arizona, California and Hawaii. The Foundation is relationship-based and strives to understand needs and opportunities of local communities, cultures and habitats. Strategies for charitable impact and effectiveness include direct engagement with organizations and supporting their work while providing opportunities for other philanthropists and community members to get involved—growing resources and scale for the important projects in which they invest.

The Dorrance Family Foundation has awarded ASU’s work that develops models for positive change and health for coral reefs, ocean habitats, communities in Hawaii and our world. The Dorrance Marine Conservation Initiative protects habitats and biodiversity in coastal and nearshore ecosystems and the imperiled species they harbor by supporting ASU’s Reef Restoration, Resilience and Recovery program, led by Professor Greg Asner, director of the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. It addresses pressing issues of environmental degradation in Hawaii’s waters and coral reefs and creates an immediate opportunity to develop the largest coral nursery in the Pacific Ocean.

The Dorrance Hawaii Innovation Fund has provided resources for largescale education and conservation projects across the state, creating innovative and impactful partnerships with the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Kamehameha Schools and Miloli’i Village, to name a few. The fund supports Hawaii food systems and food security research, indigenizing digital education, virtual field trips development, an ASU Local start-up, data collection on the condition of coral reefs, research and education and coral reef mapping from ASU’s Global Airborne Observatory program. The Dorrance Family Foundation’s strategies align closely with the ASU Charter and its promise to take responsibility for the overall health of the communities it serves. ASU is proud to honor the Foundation as its Philanthropist of the Year.