The forest has always been a classroom.
Your gift keeps McKenna Academy open — sustaining Indigenous knowledge, Amazonian conservation, and rigorous ethnobotanical education for generations. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to research, education, and cultural preservation. Make a tax‑deductible donation.
150,000
Botanical specimens preserved
3
Landmark symposia (1967–present)
10+
World-class experts
501(c)(3)
Tax-deductible gift
IRS 501(c)(3) Nonprofit · SSL Secured & Tax-Deductible
Founded by Dr. Dennis McKenna, PhD
your gift at work
What your donation makes possible
Every dollar flows directly into programs that preserve knowledge, cultivate scholars, and bridge the distance between ancestral wisdom and the world that needs it most.
Indigenous Learning
Every gift helps fund work with Indigenous and traditional knowledge holders — ensuring the people closest to this wisdom can study, teach, and lead within our community. This is not optional. It is built into the structure of how we operate.
Reciprocity in action
Biognosis — The Amazonian Herbarium
150,000+ botanical specimens in Iquitos, Peru — at risk of being lost forever. Your support helps preserve and digitize one of the Amazon’s most significant treasures, safeguarding the knowledge encoded in each specimen for researchers and communities for generations ahead.
Conservation Legacy
The Living Library Education for All
Your gift helps sustain our community built for serious explorers of plants, fungi, traditional ecological knowledge, and the natural world. Not content that separates culture from context. Just rigor, deep scholarship, and a growing library that gets richer with every member.
Accessible Depth
Symposia & Gatherings
From our landmark symposia series spanning five decades to gatherings in the Amazon and beyond — your gifts make it possible to convene researchers, elders, practitioners, and students at the same table, building the genuine dialog that produces real knowledge.
Living Dialog
“Plants are running the show. They have mastered photosynthesis — and everything else, in a certain sense, can be thought of as a parasite on plants.”
Dennis McKenna, Ph.D. — President and Principal Founder, McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy
Join the tradition
Your gift is a seed in ancient soil.
You are not buying a product. You are joining a tradition of stewardship — one that has been cultivating the conversation between science, tradition, and deep engagement with the natural world.
Our reciprocity commitment
A fixed percentage of every gift funds scholarships for Indigenous students and ensures traditional knowledge holders have access to this community. This is not a marketing feature. It is a non-negotiable expression of our values — and it happens with every donation, at every tier.
The McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy Inc, is a public charity recognized as tax-exempt by the IRS under IRC Section 501(c)(3). Donations are fully tax-deductible to the maximum extent allowed by law.
For bank transfers, gifts of stock, cryptocurrency and other donations, please email us at connect@mckenna.academy
A tradition of inquiry
Decades of serious work
behind every course.
The McKenna Academy is not a new platform. It is the institutional expression of decades of fieldwork, scholarship, and dialog between disciplines.
The First Symposium — San Francisco
The original gathering — the first international, interdisciplinary convening of scientists studying plant use in Indigenous societies. Sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. A formative influence on Dennis McKenna’s career.
50th Anniversary Symposium — Tyringham Hall, UK
The 50th anniversary symposium convened by Dr. Dennis McKenna at Tyringham Hall, England. The published proceedings — including contributions from leading ethnobotanists and anthropologists — won the James A. Duke Botanical Literature Award and has been reprinted seven times.
55th Anniversary Symposium — St Giles House, UK
A four-day gathering featuring leading mycologists, ethnobotanists, and anthropologists. Proceedings published by Synergetic Press.
Gathering in the Amazon — Peru
Co-convened with Dr. Wade Davis, bringing together scientists, cultural leaders, and diverse Indigenous Andean voices.
The Living Library
Courses across five learning pathways. Teachers who lived the research — in the forest, in the lab, and at the table with Indigenous knowledge keepers.
A tradition of inquiry
Decades in the field. At the table. In the
forest.
Every course is taught by someone who didn’t just study this material — they spent their careers inside it.
Dr. Dennis McKenna
Ethnobotanist & Principal Founder
Dr. Wade Davis
Anthropologist
Dr. Paul Alan Cox
Ethnobotanist
Dr. Claudia J. Ford
Ethnobotanist
Dr. Michael Winkelman
Anthropologist
Dr. Steven King
Ethnobotanist
Dr. Mike Balick
Ethnobotanist
Bob Voeks
Ethnobotanist
Maryia Garnet
EXAT Practitioner
Dr. Michael Coe
Ethnobotanist
Join a tradition.
Not just a cause.
Your gift cultivates the ongoing conversation between science, tradition, and the living world — for scholars, practitioners, and curious minds who need it most.