The Research Engine
The Kiona Foundation
The Kiona Foundation is the nonprofit engine behind the research. It is where the science lives, where the studies are held, and where the promise that dignified care should reach everyone is kept.
The Kiona Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity. It exists to advance pharmacognosy and novel botanical drug discovery through the FDA Botanical Drug Development pathway, to generate community-anchored evidence on the endocannabinoid system, and to make the resulting knowledge serve the communities most often left out of it.
Dr. Lakisha founded it in her daughter Kiona's name. What began in loss she made into infrastructure: a place where rigorous research and community equity are held together rather than traded against each other.
The Foundation carries its own programs, its research operations, and the ways to give. This site points you to it; the Foundation site holds the rest.
Initiatives
Where the work is taking root.
Home for Hope. In Macedon, New York, the Foundation is building a unified campus for research, cultivation, processing, and clinical work, developed in partnership with state and federal agencies and regional institutions. It is where the science, the growing, and the care meet in one place.
Liberia 2030: From Soil to Sovereignty. A policy advocacy carried to the national government of Liberia, with Dr. Lakisha providing the scientific, clinical, and regulatory foundation. It reflects the Foundation's conviction that botanical medicine and equity belong in policy, not only in the laboratory.
Supporting the research is the most direct way to support the work.
The Foundation holds the donation infrastructure and the tax-deductible giving. Contributions there feed the studies, the frameworks, and the equity mission directly.