From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a philanthropic foundation that has been making grants since 1966 to address current social and environmental issues. The Hewlett Foundation is the sixth largest philanthropic foundation in the U.S., and it has over $7 billion in total assets. The foundation gives away over $200 million each year. William Hewlett, who started the foundation with his wife Flora and son Walter, co-founded the technology company Hewlett-Packard.

Contents 1 Programs 2 Grants and Accomplishments 3 See also 4 External links

The foundation focuses its resources on several key issues where it believes that it can have significant impact. About half of the foundation's work is focused on international issues.

• The Education Program promotes improvements in instruction, the development of open educational content, and California reform.
• The Environment Program seeks to prevent catastrophic climate change and conserves land in the Western United States.
• The Global Development Program advances knowledge about how to alleviate poverty overseas.
• The Performing Arts Program supports San Francisco Bay Area arts institutions.
• The Population Program improves access to reproductive health in the United States and overseas.

The foundation also makes grants to support local low income communities and the field of philanthropy.

The foundation plays a key leadership role in the nonprofit sector. Its support for the operations of nonprofits, through long term grants, is admired by nonprofit executives. Recently, national attention focused on the foundation when it made grantees' perceptions of its work available to the public. Under the leadership of Paul Brest, the foundation has become an advocate for evidence based strategies for social change. But this stance has been controversial.

In 2000, the foundation gave $400 million to Stanford University for humanities, sciences, and undergraduate education. At the time, the gift was the largest on record to a university.

Examples of accomplishments include:

• Collaboration with the Mellon Foundation to develop the field of open courseware. Through these efforts, MIT and many other educational institutions have made their curricular materials available to the public.
• Restoration of the Bay Area Salt Ponds and conservation of the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada.
• The foundation has been a long time supporter of key performing arts groups in the Bay Area and reproductive health organizations in the United States. Planned Parenthood, for example, has been a grantee for decades.

• List of wealthiest foundations

• Official site