Donna Karan

Donna Karan’s commitment to philanthropy and global healing led her to create the Urban Zen Foundation, an organization that brings together like-minded people and organizations to define solutions and implement action in the areas of well-being, empowering children, and preserving culture. In 2007, to launch the groundbreaking Urban Zen Well-Being Initiative, Karan and Urban Zen hosted a 10-day Well-Being Forum, which brought together health care leaders and grass roots practitioners from around the country to discuss developing a new healthcare model for the future. As a result of the overwhelming response to this event, Karan developed a pilot program at Beth Israel Medical Center in 2008 to create an Optimum Healing Environment that brings Eastern healing modalities into Western medical settings and is fiercely focused on patient care. She also launched the Urban Zen Integrative Therapist Training Program in 2009 to teach allied health-care professionals healing therapies to support patients, family, and caregivers in hospital and clinical settings. In recognition of her groundbreaking work, the Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing awarded Donna Karan an honorary nursing degree on June 2, 2009. While still actively engaged in designing, Karan is now channeling much of her time and energy toward philanthropy through the Urban Zen Foundation. Donna has merged commerce with philanthropy, a new model in retail, by donating a portion of sales to financially support the works of the foundation.