Chino Cienega Foundation was founded in Palm Springs, California, as a legacy of Frances & Prescott Stevens and Sallie & Culver Nichols.

Prescott and Frances were early arrivals in the little community that later became incorporated as the City of Palm Springs, and their daughter Sallie attended the town’s one-room school house.  Sallie and her husband Culver were lifetime residents of Palm Springs from the early 1930's forward.

The Stevens and Nichols families shared a commitment to education and the arts, together with an enduring appreciation of the inter-relatedness of local community to the international community and to the global environment.  It is to this shared vision that the work of the Foundation is dedicated.