About Us
Our Mission
Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s creativity and devotion to public service, our mission is to nurture the curiosity, imagination, and originality of future leaders in many disciplines, turning the spark of creativity into a flame that benefits our communities.
The video above captures the spirit of the foundation’s annual Creativity Celebration, and includes an interview with the Creativity Foundation’s founder.
The Creativity Foundation is dedicated to recognizing creative and gifted individuals, and encouraging them to share what they have discovered about creativity with one another and with the public. Our aim is to spark the curiosity, imagination and originality of future leaders in our communities.
In 2020, the Creativity Foundation Junto (see below) decided to explore a new model of operation for a trial period of three years. We are trying something that's different from our previous annual Creativity Celebration Weekend in Washington, D.C. -- an event centered on the Laureate and new Legacy winners. Due to Covid, we could not meet in person for a Creativity Celebration. In addition, the Junto came to the conclusion that the Creativity Foundation could, perhaps, have greater impact, and achieve its mission more effectively by giving grants to exceptional organizations that successfully nurture the creativity of young people while tackling pressing social needs in the fields of science, the arts and humanities, entrepreneurship, and public service.
The Junto
In 1727, Ben Franklin brought together a group of young tradesmen for mutual self-improvement, and named this group the Junto (from the Latin “to join” not Junta, a small revolutionary group seizing power). Franklin’s Junto acted as a forum for founding institutions, for writing and publishing critical pamphlets, and for becoming the honest broker of creative ideas not aligned with or encumbered by religious, political or royal affiliations.
On January 17, 2000, the 294th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth, Benjamin Franklin Kahn and several of his most ingenious acquaintances reconvened the Junto with other very distinguished men and women at the peaks of accomplishment in their own disciplines. More…