About the Chorus Foundation

The Chorus Foundation worked for a just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States. We supported communities on the front lines of the old, extractive economy to build new bases of political, economic, and cultural power for systemic change.

We envision an economy in which everyone can find meaningful work; an environment in which everyone has access to clean air, clean water, and a stable climate; and a democracy in which everyone has a say.

Our plan was never to exist in perpetuity, and in 2023 we distributed our remaining assets to the frontline organizations we have been partnering with for years, and closed the foundation.

What We Believed

The climate crisis is embedded in a larger ecological crisis, which is in turn inextricably linked to parallel crises within our political and economic systems. Communities of color and working class communities are on the front lines of these crises, and they are already experiencing disproportionate impacts.

To respond to these crises, we must reclaim our democracy and move from the extractive economy to one that is restorative of people, place, and planet. The economic alternatives we require are already possible, but they are unsung and under-resourced.

As an essential step in this process, we must eliminate the fossil fuel industry’s undue influence on our democracy, and accelerate the end of the extraction, export, and use of fossil fuels. This particular transition is inevitable, but we will have to work hard to ensure that it is both timely and just.

We will not be able to address the climate crisis without a broad-based social movement that demands deep systemic change. We have been inspired by the work happening in local communities across the country, and we believe that their leadership is essential to the collective future that we all want to see.

An Invitation to Progressive Funders

To support truly transformative work, we believe that philanthropy itself must transform – by challenging our own assumptions, learning from social movements, and finding new ways to collaborate.

Please join us!

About Farhad Ebrahimi

Farhad Ebrahimi (he/him) is an organizer, trainer, and story-based strategist active primarily in the philanthropic sector. For the past 16 years, his principal role has been as the Founder and President of the Chorus Foundation.

Farhad identifies first and foremost as an abolitionist with respect to the concept of private philanthropy. As such, he’s most interested in the question of how extracted and consolidated wealth can be redistributed in ways that directly support a Just Transition to a world in which such wealth is no longer extracted and consolidated in the first place. It’s in this context that the Chorus Foundation itself has been structured as a transitional form, and spent down its entire endowment by the end of 2023.

Farhad’s family history has been defined by multiple cultures, nationalities, and political revolutions. To say that his parents talked politics at home when he was growing up would be an understatement, and the experience of being a first-generation Iranian American throughout the 1980s had a profound impact on Farhad in ways that he’s still unpacking. These early experiences – combined with a lifelong love of punk and subversive art in general – have defined a political trajectory that has informed both his personal and professional outlook.

Farhad is also a musician, a lover of film and literature, and an occasional bicycle snob. In addition to his work at Chorus, he is a member of the Center for Story-based Strategy’s trainer network, a Co-founder of Solidaire, and sits on the boards of Solidaire, the Center for Economic Democracy, and the National Committee For Responsive Philanthropy. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with Computer Science, and he lives with thirteen adults and five children on Tongva land in Los Angeles.

Affiliations, Memberships, and Endorsements

The Chorus Foundation was a member of:

The Chorus Foundation was guided by the Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing, Movement Generation’s Just Transition framework, and Justice Funders’ Resonance framework.