BOULDER, Colo. – Nancy Whiteman, CEO and Co-Founder of Wana Brands, today announced the formal launch of the Wana Brands Foundation (WBF), a $50 million organization working to provide people with the resources they need to live happy, healthy lives. Its areas of focus include Research & Education, Food Security, Shelter, Safety, Mental Health, Sustainability, Connection, and Social Justice.
Whiteman established the endowment from the proceeds of Wana’s 2021 transaction with Canopy Growth Corporation. To date, the WBF has committed over $3.8 million to more than 50 nonprofits.
“Since we began Wana Brands in 2010, our mission has been to enhance lives through cannabis,” Whiteman said. “Today, we remain committed to the overall mission, but the formation of the Wana Brands Foundation enables us to dimensionalize what it means to enhance people’s lives and tremendously expands the scope and impact of how we can serve our communities and the world at large. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to give back through the Foundation.”
Key 2022 initiatives include:
A $2 million gift to Johns Hopkins University will benefit the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in support of cannabis and cannabinoid research, including the potential use of cannabinoids to treat autism. This research will be led by Ryan Gregory Vandrey, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the JHU Cannabis Science Laboratory.
The WBF has committed to making a $1 million gift to the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, which focuses on how psychedelics affect behavior, mood, cognition, brain function, and biological markers of health. Upcoming studies will determine the effectiveness of psilocybin as a new therapy for opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (formerly known as chronic Lyme disease), anorexia nervosa and alcohol use in people with major depression.
The WBF made a $500,000 gift to Out Boulder County’s “We All Belong” capital campaign for their new community center. Out Boulder County’s mission is to facilitate connection, advocacy, education, research and programs to ensure LGBTQ+ people and communities thrive in Boulder County and beyond.
The WBF donated nearly $160,000 to 16 local organizations working to end hunger in their communities. These gifts are part of the WBF’s commitment not only to feed individuals in need, but to address the environmental and social injustices that contribute to food insecurity across the country.
The WBF has gifted nearly $50,000 to nonprofits focused on social justice, including the Reentry Initiative, Last Prisoner Project, Expunge Colorado, and National Expungement Works.
The WBF recently awarded a $25,000 grant to Realm of Caring, whose mission is to improve quality of life through cannabinoid research, educational services, and advocacy while creating global community connections.
The WBF donated $25,000 to the League of Women Voters Education Fund to support voter education and resources.
In the wake of the tragic King Soopers shooting in Colorado, the WBF donated funds to Animal Assisted Therapy Programs of Colorado for a memorial to the victims and survivors. Conceived by the family of one of the victims, the memorial offers a place where people struggling with mental health issues can receive animal assisted therapy.
“The Foundation’s gift will give us resources we need to take our research to new heights,” says Ryan Vandrey, Ph.D., of the JHU Cannabis Science Laboratory. “An unrestricted gift like this provides us the opportunity to get creative in our research and conduct studies that we believe will be most impactful, rather than trying to fit our ideas to the priorities of other funding agencies. The Johns Hopkins Cannabis Science Laboratory is committed to the conduct of objective science that expands our basic understanding of the behavioral pharmacology of cannabis and informs policy, patient-provider decisions regarding medicinal cannabis, and the prevention and treatment of potential harms associated with cannabis use.”
“The Wana Brands Foundation aims to create a balance between immediate needs and longer term solutions by supporting non-profits that are catalyzing tangible change in the world,” said Karla Rodriguez, Senior Director of Corporate Social Responsibility. “To quote Desmond Tutu, ‘There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.’”
To schedule an interview contact Shawna Seldon McGregor at 917-971-7852 or [email protected]
About Wana Brands FoundationEstablished in 2022 by Wana Brands CEO Nancy Whiteman, The Wana Brands Foundation (WBF) is a nonprofit organization working to enhance our world by providing funding and other support for a wide range of charitable initiatives. The WBF mission is focused on providing life essentials to communities all over the world. To learn more, visit http://wanabrandsfoundation.org
