Developing nations with vast natural resources so often fail to provide for the basic needs of their citizens that economists have given the phenomenon a name: “the resource curse.” While academics debate the reasons why, the nonprofit Revenue Watch Institute is working to do something about it. Revenue Watch, a Hewlett Foundation grantee, has launched …

“Foundations” is a series of informal question-and-answer sessions with employees and others affiliated with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to give them an opportunity to explain their work.Tom Steinbach, an officer with the Foundation’s Environment Program, manages grants to promote conservation in western North America. Here he offers an overview of that work and …

From helping Maine middle schoolers monitor ecosystems to studying student debt in community colleges, the Board of Directors of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation authorized $81.8 million in new grants to 124 organizations this spring. Organizations receiving grants ranged across the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout the world in the Foundation’s six primary …

Mike Beagle is nobody’s idea of a tree hugger. He grew up hunting and fishing around rural Eagle Point, Oregon, and was a star defensive back for his high school football team for four years running before he joined the U.S. Army and served as a field artillery officer with the 9th Infantry Division. But …

“Foundations” is an occasional series of informal question-and-answer sessions with employees and others affiliated with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to give them an opportunity to explain their work. Nicole Gray, an officer with the Foundation’s Population Program, manages a broad range of grants in the United States and internationally that pertain to reproductive …

Five-year-old Avery Fasfirinn and his mother push open the battered metal door into the former warehouse that houses the Destiny Arts Center in North Oakland, and, instantly radiant with excitement, Avery rushes down the hallway to his martial arts class, Teddy Bear level. He threads his way quickly through a tumultuous, back-and-forth flow of kids …

Navigating a course as the world’s only super power demands that the United States employ a broad array of tools if it is to garner the respect and cooperation of other nations. Exploring the use of these tools is the work to which the nonpartisan Center for U.S. Global Engagement, a Hewlett grantee, has dedicated …

How does a country that has lost 300,000 of its children to genocide consider the proposition of family planning? It’s a problem with nuances and contradictions that Laura Hoemeke, the director of a family planning and health project in Kigali, Rwanda, considers every day. Hoemeke, whose project is operated by the non-profit Intrahealth, works to …

“Foundations” is a series of informal question-and-answer sessions with employees of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to give them an opportunity to explain their work. Ward Heneveld is a program officer and Lynn Murphy a senior fellow with the Foundation’s Global Development Program. Together they are working in an unusual partnership with the Bill …

For the Hewlett Foundation’s first-ever live webcast, the topic was–appropriately enough–how new digital media may change the work of artists, non-profit arts organizations and their funders. The Foundation’s Performing Arts Program joined with the Northern California Grantmakers, a San Francisco Bay-area association of foundations and other donor organizations, in February to host “Web & Where …