About Stand Together Trust

History demonstrates that people are capable of extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to learn, contribute, and succeed.

But too often, barriers of all kinds stand in the way of people realizing their potential. By supporting and inspiring social entrepreneurs, we empower the people who break these barriers so that every person can live a life of meaning and purpose.

We support social entrepreneurs across society working in education, communities, business, and government. We do this by supporting applied research that turns great ideas into practical solutions and investing in projects that demonstrate new and better ways to tackle the root causes of our country’s biggest problems.

Our Principles

We Believe in People

Every person has a gift. And every person deserves the chance to find and express that gift. Solving our country’s problems depends on it.

We Believe Bottom-Up Works Best

The best way to solve problems is by empowering a diversity of people – including those who tend to be overlooked. Often, the best solutions come from those closest to the problems themselves.

We Unite With Anyone To Do Right

People who look for common ground find it. By partnering where we agree (even if it’s just on one of ten issues), we can accomplish so much more as a society.

Charles Koch

Stand Together Trust was founded by Charles Koch, a Forbes Top-25 philanthropist and CEO of the largest private company in America. Charles built his business from the bottom up. A student of history and the philosophy of science, he saw that a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach stifles people from innovating and holds back progress. He chose a better way: Empowering employees to work together to solve the problems closest to them. The combination of their individual actions created one of the greatest success stories in American history. Stand Together Trust is built on that same principle.

Charles holds two master’s degrees in nuclear and chemical engineering from MIT and lives in Wichita, Kansas, with his wife, Liz. A New York Times bestselling author, his most recent book is Believe in People: Bottom-up Solutions for a Top-down World.

Stand Together

Stand Together Trust is part of a broader philanthropic community that helps America’s boldest changemakers tackle the root causes of our country’s biggest problems – driving solutions on education, economic opportunity, health care, bridging partisan divides, and dozens of other pressing issues. Stand Together helps partners transform their results by accessing capabilities including funding, tapping into a unique network including Fortune 50 CEOs, civil rights leaders, and hundreds of nonprofit leaders, and utilizing a playbook for applying principles that are proven to help people thrive.