Dharma Initiative - Hanso Foundation

Hanso Foundation

The Hanso Foundation, founded by Danish arms dealer Alvar Hanso, is the major benefactor of the Dharma Initiative. Nearly all information about the Foundation is drawn from its Web site, thehansofoundation.org, with further background revealed as part of the alternate reality game, the Lost Experience.

During the Lost Experience, documents and other information were released to suggest that the management of the Foundation was scandalous and, in some cases, criminal. For example, some executives were revealed to have falsely reported the extent of their education in their biographies. One executive was caught in an extramarital affair. Others defended tobacco companies, nuclear power plants and an oil company that dumped chemical waste in Florida. Another executive was sentenced to eight years for insider trading which he subsidized through a retirement fund for a health care union.