---
category: "Philanthropists & Benefactors"
tags:
  - Person
  - SRI
  - Stargate
summary: "Philanthropist and part-owner of Church's Fried Chicken who provided initial funding for Hal Puthoff's psi research at SRI."
---


[[Bill Church]] was a philanthropist and amateur scientist, known for being a part owner of [[Church's Fried Chicken]]. In the early 1970s, he provided [[Hal Puthoff]] with ten thousand dollars in initial funding to begin his [[Parapsychology|psi]] experiments at [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]]. This private funding was crucial in the nascent stages of the remote viewing research program, preceding the involvement of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]].[^1]

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[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.