Mission

Building a better world for all starts with collaboration.

Since 1996, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) has made grants to nonprofit organizations and projects around the world, working with an incredible community of partners to create transformative change whose benefits multiply and are shared widely.

Our mission, encompassing program areas of Arts & Culture, Education, Health & Sports, and Social Welfare, is broad by design. At its core are a fundamentally collaborative approach based on the expertise of partners on the ground, a commitment to public-private partnership, and a belief that everyone should have access to art, education, health care, and life’s other essentials.

This approach, with humanity at the core, has guided support to more than 3,000 grantee-partners in 136 countries.

As a non-partisan philanthropy, SNF is not an advocacy organization and does not support or engage in political campaign activity.

3,000+

grantee-partners

$3.9B+

in grants

136

countries

Facing up to the challenges and the opportunities that the new year inevitably brings will require fighting for democratic values in every sector of society, of which the most fundamental—and the most overlooked—is preserving our own humanity.

Andreas C. Dracopoulos

SNF Co-President

Our Priorities

Arts & Culture

Our goal is to help as many people as possible enjoy works, experiences, and places that help us to connect with our shared humanity.

During the implementation of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) over the next few years, SNF will continue to assess applications for support, but will do so in a much more selective way.

Learn more

Education

We believe that everyone has an equal, inalienable right to free access to knowledge and education.

During the implementation of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) over the next few years, SNF will continue to assess applications for support, but will do so in a much more selective way.

Learn more

Health & Sports

No matter who you are, where you’re from, and what your age or background is, you should have access to quality health care.

During the implementation of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) over the next few years, SNF will continue to assess applications for support, but will do so in a much more selective way.

Learn more

Social Welfare

Everyone deserves access to life’s essentials—food, shelter, community, the opportunity to support themselves, and a helping hand when emergency strikes.

During the implementation of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) over the next few years, SNF will continue to assess applications for support, but will do so in a much more selective way.

Learn more

A primary ongoing focus for SNF is our multifaceted Global Health Initiative (GHI), which aims to improve access to quality health care through a range of projects including building three new hospitals in Greece, offering new medical training programs, providing state-of-the-art equipment, leveraging international expertise to strengthen health infrastructure, and more.

Other projects like the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL), which reimagined and remade the New York Public Library’s central circulating branch, help ensure access for all to beautiful, inspiring public space where people of all ages and from all backgrounds can keep learning, keep growing, and keep deepening their understanding of our world.

We created SNF Nostos as a celebration of big ideas on timely topics and wholesome summer fun experienced together—from a joyful race for a good cause to electrifying performances from big-name artists. At its heart have been the SNF Conference and an SNF Dialogues discussion, one installment in a traveling series of open, public conversations on timely topics. SNF Nostos will return in 2026 from June 21-28, marking the 30th anniversary of SNF’s grantmaking.

SNF Nostos has been held at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, created through SNF’s largest single grant to date and given to the people of Greece in 2017, which welcomes visitors around the world to a vibrant public space and park, to the Greek National Opera, and to the National Library of Greece.