From Training Young Ecologists to Studying Student Debt: The Hewlett Foundation Awards $84.9 Million in New Grants

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 

“Foundations” – A Q&A with Nicole Gray, Population Program Officer

“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 

Moving Through Danger to Self-Confidence

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 

Featured Web Site: Center for U.S. Global Engagement

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 

Finding Common Ground in the Wilderness

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 

The Hewlett Foundation Welcomes New Employees

Jenn Fox, Project Manager, Environment Program Jenn Fox joined the Foundation in January 2008 as a Project Manager in the Environment Program.  Her focus is developing the global philanthropic network organized to win the fight against climate change.  From 1998 to 2007, she worked for Energy Solutions on energy efficiency-related policy development and project management.  

Featured Web Site: PlayGround

Playwrights don’t just spring fully formed upon the world. They need a place to develop. There’s college, of course, but that’s just a beginning. To keep the innovation flowing, there’s PlayGround. Since its founding in 1994, the San Francisco-based non-profit has developed and staged more than 400 original ten-minute plays by 137 writers at the 

Rwanda Emerges from Darkness and Looks to the Future

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 

A Digital Colloquy

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 

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