Richard "Rip" Rapson (born March 16, 1952) is an American attorney and philanthropist serving as CEO of the Kresge Foundation.

[6][8] He worked as a liaison between Fraser's Washington office and his local district office in Minneapolis as well as contributing to the writing and passage of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1978 to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota.

[9][13] Rapson ran in the 1993 Minneapolis mayoral elections against Richard Jefferson, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and Sharon Sayles-Belton, president of the city council.

[10] He was responsible for a number of large grant programs made by the foundation including a $100-million grant to bring financial stability to the Detroit Institute of Arts whose art collection was owned by the city when it went bankrupt in 2013 and was being considered for sale to cover the city's debt.

[10][17] Together with Gerald Rosen, a U.S. district court chief judge, and Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation which chipped in another $125 million,[18] Rapson helped organize a "grand bargain" as proposed by Judge Rosen,[10][19] with other contributions from a number of foundations and the state of Michigan, to keep the art collection from being liquidated and help preserve pensions for city retirees, whose retirement funds were also at risk.

[18][21] Rapson is a founding member on the board of directors of M-1 Rail, a non-profit organization which built, owns, and operates the QLine.

[24] As CEO of the Kresge Foundation, as of 2017, Rapson manages the organization's $3.8 billion in assets and 105 full-time employees.