Our Mission
Satish Kumar Foundation has made its mission to support the rebirth of Schumacher College by:
Raising the essential funds to sustain it through the financial demands of its early years, until it can once again find stability and resilience, grounded in fairness.
Securing a new home for Schumacher College—recognising that place is not incidental, but fundamental to its ethos. The College has always been rooted in the living landscape, where education unfolds in relationship with the land, the kitchen, the garden, and the wider community. A new home will allow this embodied, place-based learning to flourish once again.
Establishing a legacy fund—an enduring endowment not only for Schumacher College itself, but also for the many learning centres and projects around the world founded by its alumni and inspired by Satish Kumar’s lifelong dedication to peace, ecology, and holistic education.
About Us
The Satish Kumar Foundation has been established to:
Support the rebirth of Schumacher College
Secure a new home for Schumacher College
Support the many learning centres and projects around the world inspired by Satish Kumar’s lifelong dedication to peace, ecology, and holistic education.
The organisation was founded shortly after the announcement of Schumacher College’s closure by the Dartington Hall Trust on 27th August 2024. It was first formed as a Community Interest Company that same month, and later became a registered charity in February 2025.
Satish Kumar Foundation exists to uphold the legacy of Schumacher College and to breathe new life into a movement ready to meet a world in flux, one facing ecological breakdown, social division, political upheaval, and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. It champions ways of learning and living that nurture care, connection, imagination, resilience, and open pathways toward regenerative and life-affirming futures. This foundation is not simply an organisation, it is a continuation of a living philosophy, a refusal to let an extraordinary flame be extinguished.
About Schumacher College
In the moving film, Radical Love, about the life of Satish Kumar—activist, former Jain monk, peace pilgrim, ecological educator, and long-time editor of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine— he described Schumacher College as the culmination of his life’s journey. A place where the many streams of his work- his global peace walks, his founding of a Small School in Devon, his editorial voice, and his call for reverence for the Earth—flowed together to form a centre for ecological and holistic learning.
For 34 years at Schumacher College, students were invited not only to think with their heads, but to learn with their hearts and hands. Inspired by Eastern traditions and the spirit of ashram living, the college fostered a culture of service: students, teachers, volunteers, and guests all participated in the simple, essential acts of care—cooking, cleaning, tending to the land and one another.
This sacred act of serving others—woven into the daily rhythm of Schumacher life—was never separate from its pedagogy. At the heart of its education lied a profound truth: that life is nothing less than an intricate web of interconnection.
Rooted in this understanding, students engaged with science, economics, design, agriculture and arts not as isolated disciplines, but as interdependent and dynamic living systems. It is this integration of inner and outer, theory and practice, intellect and intuition, that made Schumacher’s education not only unique, but quietly revolutionary—and renowned across the world.
From this living classroom emerged graduates shaped by a profound understanding of service and interbeing—people who have gone on to make meaningful contributions across social, political, and ecological spheres.
Alumni of the college—political advisors, community weavers, ecological regenerators, visionary entrepreneurs, imaginative designers, artists, writers and storytellers—carry this ethos into their work. They serve the world as they once served their learning community: with humility, purpose, and a fierce love for the Earth and one another.
Learning here was never designed to fuel the machinery of the market. It was meant to liberate. To create a space where people could lay down the armour of societal expectations and come face to face with their true selves. It was a sanctuary where each individual could discern their own path of contribution to the healing of a world deeply wounded.
