The Trust for Mutual Understanding was established in 1984 by an anonymous American philanthropist as a private, grantmaking organization dedicated to promoting improved communication, closer cooperation, and greater respect between the people of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries in Eastern and Central Europe.

Today, the Trust makes grants to American nonprofit organizations to support the international travel component of cultural and environmental exchanges conducted in partnership with institutions and individuals in Russia and Eastern and Central Europe. Priority consideration is given to projects in which direct, professional interaction plays a major role.

Annual Reports
2008

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2007

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Geographic Scope
Most of TMU’s grants are made to help defray travel and per diem expenses of exchanges relating specifically to Russia, with the balance allocated primarily for projects involving the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Ukraine. A limited amount of international travel assistance is also provided for exchanges with Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.

The independent Baltic states are not currently within TMU's purview, nor, except in rare circumstances, are those in Central Asia that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Fields of Interest
The Trust provides grants specifically for international travel and per diem expenses associated with professional exchanges in the arts and environmental sciences. Approximately two-thirds of TMU's awards support the international travel component of exchanges in the visual and performing arts and one-third support international travel involved in exchanges in environmental conservation.

Among the types of activities eligible to receive international travel assistance from TMU common to both fields are advanced training programs, workshops, conferences, seminars, joint research projects, and exchanges intended to aid organizations in the region seeking to achieve greater institutional stability. The Trust also funds international travel costs associated with the following:

Culture. Creative artistic collaborations, curatorial research projects, performances given in conjunction with lecture/demonstrations and/or workshops, conservation and historic preservation projects, arts management programs, and cultural documentation activities.

Environment. Ecosystem and habitat conservation programs, land use planning projects, activities that facilitate more effective international contact between environmental organizations, measures designed to preserve biodiversity, and efforts to encourage environmental sustainability.

Although the Trust supports international travel associated with institutional activities that foster the exchange of individuals as participants in projects, it does not make grants directly to individuals, nor, as a general rule, to organizations for activities in which only a single participant is involved.

TMU does not support one-person exhibitions of work by living artists, solo performance tours, or fellowships for individual research or academic study, or provide retroactive funding for project expenses already incurred. The Trust does not usually make multiyear commitments or, except in special circumstances, support interregional exchanges or travel by project participants in their home countries.

TMU does not fund youth programs; institutional operating expenses; capital campaigns; construction costs; salaries, honoraria, or fees; undergraduate or graduate student exchanges; performing or visual arts competitions; literature or publication projects; library acquisitions or equipment purchases; film production, media training, or mass communications programs; activities pertaining primarily to arms control or security issues; or projects concentrating on economic development, medicine, public health, or agriculture.