About
A foundation for a higher level of conscience.
Our mission is to promote Nonviolence in business and fund Nonviolent projects in education, based on the Nonviolent Communication practices developed by Marshall Rosenberg.
Our origin
Founded in 2021 by a husband and wife duo.
Citizens of Our Planet was founded in 2021 by husband and wife duo, Alina and Nicolas Vandenberghe.
Of Romanian and French descent, respectively, Alina and Nicolas have found immense value in their diverse and inclusive environment. It's a community that has been invaluable to building their company, Chili Piper, with a foundation of inclusivity, respect, and acceptance.
Their passion for diversity, equity, and world peace permeates their lives and business. The foundation was launched with a pledge of one million dollars, and began its philanthropic work with gifts to organizations supporting refugees and displaced people around the world. See every grant we have made →
How we got here
2021 – 2026
From two themes, to Ukraine, and back again.
We launched Citizens of Our Planet in 2021 with two philanthropic themes in mind: that we are all brothers and sisters across nations, and that Nonviolent Communication is a tool that can improve our societies in general and life in business in particular.
In February 2022 the war in Ukraine began, and we shifted our attention to helping refugees. Over the following months we made eleven grants to humanitarian and refugee organizations. As the emergency became less acute, that work gradually wound down.
In December 2025 we returned to the original mission with a grant to a French organization promoting Nonviolent Communication in schools. We have since committed funding to two further education projects, in Spain and in Colombia, and, inside Chili Piper, we have spent more than a year putting the same practices to work in a business.
The practice we build on
Nonviolent communication.
Marshall Rosenberg (1934–2015) was an American psychologist who spent his career studying what makes people respond to each other with compassion rather than with violence.
He found that most conflict escalates through a small set of learned habits, judging, blaming, demanding, denying responsibility, and that those habits can be replaced. The practice he developed, Nonviolent Communication, asks four things of a conversation: state the observation, name the feeling, identify the need underneath it, and make a clear request rather than a demand.
It sounds simple. It is not easy. It is also learnable, which is the whole reason this foundation exists.
Governance
Foundation facts.
- Legal name
- Citizens of Our Planet, a Chili Piper Foundation
- Status
- 501(c)(3) private foundation
- EIN
- 87-1179310
- Incorporated
- Delaware, 26 May 2021
- Exemption
- Effective 26 May 2021 (IRS determination 29 March 2022)
- Annual filing
- Form 990-PF
- Address
- 1 Dock 72 Way, Brooklyn, New York 11205
Contributions to Citizens of Our Planet are deductible under IRC Section 170. The foundation is funded principally by Chili Piper, Inc.