The Fertel Foundation supports the arts, education, and food culture and has a special interest in initiatives from which new communities and new insights may emerge and those that challenge entrenched communities of power. The Foundation has supported Artist Corps New Orleans, The Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, and co-founded, with the Nation Institute, the Ridenhour Prizes for Courageous Truth-Telling, named for My Lai whistleblower and investigative reporter Ron Ridenhour. The New Orleans-based foundation, established in 1999, also helps rebuild a better New Orleans – and create national models – in a post-Katrina world.