The Waitt Family Foundation & Ted Waitt

The Waitt Institute for Discovery is a non-profit research organization that serves as an exploration catalyst. We enable scientific pioneers to transform the ways in which discoveries are made and implement innovative technologies in the field through collaborations with world-renowned scientific institutions.

Partial view of Dead Sea Scroll of the 11 Qumran Psalms

The newly launched CATALYST Program is a series of deep-sea expeditions that is significantly transforming undersea exploration and the future of our oceans. CATALYST makes available for the first time a versatile and highly portable deep-sea tool kit and operations team that is rapidly deployable all over the world.

The Waitt Family Foundation provides grants to organizations striving to help us understand our past, improve the present, and prepare for the future. The initial scope of the Waitt Family Foundation was community building in at risk communities. After investing millions of dollars into various programs in multiple communities, we concluded that our work in domestic violence had the most measurable impact on those at risk today. The establishment of the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention has allowed us to broaden our activities to exploring the past and investing in science for the future. We also created the Waitt Institute for Discovery which has a primary focus on Nautical Archaeology. Currently, in addition to funding the two institutes, we fund a variety of scientific and environmental programs with an emerging focus on ocean conservation.

At this time, we are accepting proposals in the following key areas of interest:

Ocean Exploration, Conservation and Rejuvenation

Scientific Research & Exploration

On occasion, we will accept proposals outside our primary areas of focus in our local communities of San Diego, CA and North Sioux City, SD..

Working closely with the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention, we are committed to changing social norms that accept violence as a part of life. We do this in our hometown, our nation, and our world.

Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention helped sponsor this billboard in Iowa.

The Waitt Institute for Discovery and the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention are separately incorporated and carry out their own programs, working in the areas of interest they share with the Waitt Family Foundation. The Institutes do not make grants to other organizations, though they frequently work closely with nonprofit organizations receiving funding from the Foundation.