While the problems of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda are not new, certain aspects of modern technology and communications appear to be contributing to a rapid polarization and democratic deterioration in the U.S. and abroad. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Madison Initiative focuses on making democracy and its institutions – especially Congress – more effective …
Nonprofits come in all different shapes and sizes. They have different program and geographic areas, staff and budget sizes, and approaches to their work. They also have something important in common: the need to be a healthy organization to effectively provide services, conduct research, and adapt to emerging needs. But what is the best way…
Cybersecurity is a huge and growing concern for industry, civil society, and the government officials who must make decisions about new cyber policies to meet evolving threats. How are those policymakers getting the information and analysis they need to make those decisions? The perspectives of industry and government experts are well-represented in those deliberations, but …
From 2010 to 2015, the Hewlett Foundation’s Education Program invested more than $100 million in its deeper learning strategy with over 350 grants. In 2016, the program commissioned RTI International to conduct an independent evaluation of the first five years of its strategy. RTI’s report examined several questions: What progress has been made in the …
Created by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 2011, the California Education Policy Fund (CEPF) worked to improve education policies in the state by strengthening and supporting an “ecosystem” of nonprofit advocacy, research, grassroots and information-sharing organizations. With an annual budget of about $4 million, for the last three years, CEPF has supported organizations …
The Open Education Consortium (OEC) comprises a network of nearly 300 education institutions globally who are committed to advancing the use of open educational resources in higher education. The Hewlett Foundation has supported a wide range of OEC activities since 2007 and commissioned this evaluation to better understand which of those efforts have been most …
On the occasion of the Hewlett Foundation’s 50th anniversary symposium, we commissioned two historians — Benjamin Soskis of George Mason University and Stanley N. Katz of Princeton University — to take a look at the evolution of philanthropy in America in the last 50 years. Soskis and Katz, co-editors of the HistPhil blog, examine the sector’s practices …
When the Hewlett Foundation introduced its deeper learning grantmaking in 2010, the goal was to spread a concrete set of skills that American students should be learning. The strategy anticipated that high schoolers who gain academic knowledge alongside inter and intra-personal skills in school will be better prepared as college students, workers and citizens. At…
When staff and board members at foundations need trusted information about philanthropic practice, there’s one source that tops their list: their peers. In a new, first-of-its-kind study of how U.S. foundations access and use knowledge about effective philanthropy, most foundation staff and board members shared that they rely on their peers and colleagues, as opposed…
Outcome-focused philanthropy is the Hewlett Foundation’s approach to how we practice strategic philanthropy. It guides how we do our work, from start to finish. We’ve been practicing strategic philanthropy for more than a decade—focusing on what problem or opportunity we’re trying to address, whether we’re achieving our outcomes and why (or why not), and how…