About Us
We are a nonprofit organization that mobilizes partners and the public to embrace the arts as a proven path towards improved personal and public health. Rooted in medicine and science, we develop arts-based programs to address social disconnection and other public health challenges. We serve communities at scale by partnering with organizations to deliver programs that improve well-being.
The creative arts offer a powerful lens to better understand ourselves, each other, and the world. The arts draws us inward, allowing us a chance to improve personal health through individual reflection, expression, and action. Creativity also acts as a catalyst to promote interpersonal engagement that strengthens community connections and wellbeing. We utilize the arts as a public health tool to improve America’s health and wellbeing.
Our Mission
We champion, engage, and facilitate creative arts expression as a path towards improved health and well-being for individuals and communities. We do this by creating awareness of how the arts can address health issues, designing and offering creative expression based solutions, and partnering with organizations to fund, develop, and distribute programs that deliver measurable results.
Our History
Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH, founded The Foundation for Art & Healing in 2003 to explore and champion the connection between creative modalities and health and wellbeing. Since its inception, The Foundation for Art & Healing has designed and deployed a number of successful projects in response to traumatic experiences and to address public health concerns including heart disease and the loneliness epidemic.
2003 – The Foundation for Art & Healing is founded to explore the relationship between art, creativity, science, and health.
2004–2006 – The Foundation launches exploratory community activities in arts and health.
2007–2009 – The Foundation creates various publications, presentations, and programs to support veterans and active-duty service members.
2009 – To address heart health and risk factor management, the Foundation participates in the Arts & the Heart Roundtable.
2010–2011 – Foundation employees work with hospital staff and healthcare workers to support organizational health and well-being.
2012
The Foundation develops arts activity resources at Queens College shelters and provides art therapists with supplies following Hurricane Sandy.
The Foundation provides creative arts toolkits for parents and children to use as a way to cope with and heal from the Sandy Hook killings.2013 – Following the Boston Marathon bombing, the Foundation develops creative arts toolkits for the Boston-area community to use as a trauma recovery method.
2014 – The Foundation creates Breaking the Silence, a care management program for patients with diabetes.
2016 – The UnLonely Project is created to address the loneliness epidemic and use film as a vehicle to promote connection.
2020 – The Black Health & the Arts initiative is created to address systemic racism as a public health crisis. The Foundation also launches Stuck at Home Together, keeping people connected during COVID-19 by offering creative expression opportunities online through a dedicated web experience.
2021 – Colors & Connection workshops are rolled out nationally on college campuses to support 18–24-year-olds, the “loneliest demographic.” The Foundation also launches Front Row, a customized web experience providing access to a curated selection of UnLonely Films.
2023 – Dr. Jeremy Nobel’s book, Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection, is published by Penguin Random House.
2024 – In partnership with Cognition Studios, the Foundation for Art & Healing releases Embrace Your Signal: Loneliness, Art, and the Brain, an engaging three-minute overview of how creative engagement can counteract loneliness.
2025
The Foundation develops and tests new creativity and connection programs in music, writing, and movement on college campuses.
The Foundation releases The CreativityHub, a digital collection of more than 12 creative activities designed to inspire connection.
Our Values
Inspired
We believe art is a gateway to imagination and empowerment.
Compassionate
We believe all people can benefit from embracing creative expression as a way to better understand ourselves and others.
Nimble
To ensure impact, we respond to challenges strategically and effectively.
Trusted
We value scientific rigor and leverage evidence-based findings throughout our work.
Explore More
Project UnLonely
We launched this signature national initiative to raise awareness of loneliness and its negative physical and mental health effects, to destigmatize loneliness, and to make programming available to address loneliness.
Our Programs
Our suite of proven program solutions enable community-based organizations to use creative expression as an innovative and effective public health method for improving their community’s wellbeing.
