Established in 1975 by agricultural chemist William Webster Allen and based in Midland, Michigan, the Allen Foundation makes grants to projects that benefit human nutrition in the areas of education, training, and research.



The policies and priorities of the Allen Foundation:



To make grants to fund relevant nutritional research.



To support programs for the education and training of mothers during pregnancy and after the birth of their children, so that good nutritional habits can be formed at an early age.

To assist in the training of persons to work as educators and demonstrators of good nutritional practices.



To encourage the dissemination of information regarding healthful nutritional practices and habits.



In limited situations to make grants to help solve immediate emergency hunger and malnutrition problems.





The connections between diet and health remain a basic and primary priority, and consideration has always been given to projects that benefit nutritional programs in the areas of education, training, and research. Low priority has traditionally been given to proposals that help solve immediate or emergency hunger and malnutrition problems. The foundation does not under any circumstances sponsor professional conferences, seminar tables, discussion panels, or similar events. One specific hope of the board of trustees in the future is to encourage the inclusion of mandatory courses in nutrition in medical schools. Another desire is to bring the promise of “nutrigenomics” or nutritional genomics to realization, thus creating the possibility for empowering individuals to make informed choices based on genetic information for their diet in order to influence the balance between health and disease.