OUR MISSION

Serving Tibetans Since 1981

The Tibet Fund’s mission is to safeguard the distinct cultural and national identity of the Tibetan people.

As the primary funding organization devoted to supporting the Tibetan exile community, we have collaborated closely with the Central Tibetan Administration since 1981 to advance education, health, livelihoods, and religious and cultural preservation for more than 140,000 Tibetan refugees in India, Nepal and Bhutan.

In Tibet, our resources have been channeled towards supporting orphanages, healthcare, and educational initiatives that aid underprivileged and marginalized Tibetans.

Please find more information in our annual reports and newsletters under Publications.

OUR HISTORY

The Tibet Fund was founded in 1981 at a time when the international community had seemingly forgotten the plight of the Tibetan people. In the early years of exile since 1959, survival of Tibetan refugees was heavily reliant on the benevolence of the governments of India, Nepal, Bhutan, the UN High Commission for Refugees, foreign donor agencies, and the faith and resilience of the refugees themselves.

In the 1970s, humanitarian assistance began to decline. It was during such a critical juncture in exile Tibetan history that a group of U.S. citizens and Tibetan immigrants residing in the United States established The Tibet Fund. When His Holiness the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the plight of the Tibetan people gained global attention to the challenges faced by the Tibetan people and the Tibet Fund rapidly expanded in response. The organisation forged strategic partnerships with foundations, government agencies and individual donors to help the Tibetan community.

The U.S. Government began providing significant support in 1988 when the State Department established the Tibetan Scholarship Program, which has brought more than 500 Tibetans to the United States for graduate-level studies. A Congressional grant for Humanitarian Assistance was awarded in 1991 that continues to rehabilitate refugees from Tibet, providing them with healthcare and education and supporting refugee reception centers in Kathmandu, Delhi and Dharamshala. Other grants from the U.S. State Department have enabled students from Tibet to study in the U.S., strengthened the CTA’s cyber security, and rebuilt the lives of earthquake affected Tibetans in Nepal. Since 2012 The Tibet Fund has also received funding from USAID, which has been utilized to support Tibetan cultural heritage and strengthen Tibetan self-reliance through education, health, livelihoods, and gender programs.

Over the past 42 years The Tibet Fund has collaborated closely with the Central Tibetan Administration to address the comprehensive requirements of the refugee Tibetan community in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. In addition to federal grants, we have also received several million dollars from family foundations and individual donors to finance various ventures such as infrastructure development, culture preservation, sponsorships, and the Blue Book project, which entails non-Tibetans providing assistance to the Tibetan people.

Our Logo: The two-headed bird, a traditional motif featured in Tibetan thankas (religious paintings), symbolizes the Great Scholar Translators of Tibet’s early history. These scholar/translators, adept in two languages, laid the foundation for Tibetan Buddhism by translating religious texts from Sanskrit and other languages into Tibetan. We have adopted this motif as a representation of The Tibet Fund’s mission of preserving Tibet’s unique culture and religion. The color green is the auspicious birth color of His Holiness the Dalai Lama who is our Honorary Patron and who has guided our efforts. Mr Losang Gyatso created this design.