Brendan Lyons

The Flinn Foundation is a privately endowed, philanthropic grantmaking organization established in 1965 by Dr. Robert S. and Irene Flinn. Its mission is to improve the quality of life in Arizona to benefit future generations. To achieve this mission, the Foundation aims to advance the state’s bioscience sector, provide a top-notch education to high-achieving students at Arizona's public universities, boost the fiscal and creative capacity of the state’s arts and culture organizations, and develop future state-level civic leaders. Grants are awarded to nonprofit organizations to advance interests in the biosciences, Flinn Scholars, and arts and culture. In civic leadership, the Foundation supports and administers the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership and its Flinn-Brown Academy in partnership with the Thomas R. Brown Foundations of Tucson. Beyond grantmaking, the Foundation leverages the additional capacities of a private foundation through its professional resources. These are exemplified by what’s informally known as the Flinn Foundation’s “5 C’s”—to convene interested parties, collaborate and generate partnerships among groups with mutual interests, catalyze solutions, communicate progress and outcomes, and consensus-build among stakeholders. The Foundation often convenes leaders in workshops and educational forums at the Flinn Foundation Conference Center within its office building at 1802 N. Central Avenue in Phoenix. When not being used by the Foundation, these facilities—two fully-equipped meeting rooms for groups of up to 72 people—are available at no cost to Arizona’s nonprofit organizations serving the fields of the biosciences, health care, education, arts and culture, and civic leadership.