About Dezire Foundation
A founder-led nonprofit built from love, gratitude, and a need to act.
Founded by Keyhan Kaveh, Dezire is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation that uses honest storytelling and video to help shelter animals, strays, and overlooked community members be seen, heard, and supported. Dezire Foundation is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3), and contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Mission
Dezire Foundation gives a voice to unseen animals and vulnerable people by sharing their stories, building community support, and helping create love, safety, and lasting change.
Vision
A world where no animal or person is invisible simply because their story has not yet been told.
Origin Story
The first episode begins with the shelter dog who changed Keyhan's direction.
Dezire began with one dog named Harley. For nearly three years, he offered love, loyalty, and a kind of quiet guidance that became impossible to ignore.
Through Harley, Keyhan found the mission: help the unseen become seen, and help the unheard become heard. The origin episode is being shaped as Dezire's emotional beginning. It's a loving, grateful, and honest look at what is still being built.
Values
The heartfelt promise behind every story.
Dezire's work is designed to feel emotionally powerful without becoming exploitative, inflated, or performative.
Love
Lead with care for the life at the center of every story.
Dignity
Never reduce an animal or person to hardship, pity, or a headline.
Trust
Build confidence with early supporters, shelters, rescues, and communities.
Storytelling
Use video and narrative to make the overlooked visible.
Action
Turn visibility into meaningful care, adoption support, and positive change through honest storytelling.
Community
Build a space where people who care about animals and dignity can find each other and take meaningful action.
Why Storytelling Matters
A story can open a door that statistics never could.
Visibility can create care when a story is told with context, restraint, and genuine respect for the life at its center.
Dezire is building a platform where video can create connections between shelter animals and potential adopters or supporters, between community members and people who may be able to help, and between supporters and a mission they can trust.
The first chapter
You've seen the why. Help write what comes next.
Dezire is early-stage and founder-funded. Your gift supports the first origin episode and animal story films. Both are being made with patience, not haste.