Recent events — from police shootings to polarized national political debates — underscore the urgency and challenges of building diversity, equity and inclusion into our everyday work. The tensions and conflicts we are experiencing sadden us and compel us to act. Over the summer of 2016, our Education Program launched a diversity, equity and inclusion …
For those who care about the future of our planet, last week offered an unexpected glimmer of hope from the president-elect. For the first time, Donald Trump indicated he was open to fulfilling our international commitments on climate change, and he said that clean air and water are “vitally important.” Or maybe not. Days later, …
Hewlett board members, leaders, and grantees reflect on how Bill and Flora Hewlett’s vision has shaped the foundation over the last fifty years.
The first time I became aware of the concept of environmental justice, I was in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer. A neighboring oil plant contaminated the water supply of the community I was staying at. People woke up to their tap water being brownish in color and having odd metallic taste. They felt nausea …
San Jose Taiko (SJT), a grantee of the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program since 2004, is a professional performance company that has mesmerized audiences with the powerful and propulsive sounds of the taiko. Inspired by traditional Japanese drumming, SJT advances the art form of taiko by connecting people through cultural understanding, artistic expression and rhythmic …
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the milestone has offered a chance for us to reflect and learn from the past, so as to inform and inspire the future. For our staff and board, “looking back to look forward” has included articulating a set of guiding principles…
I’m about to meet a runaway success story. Yvonne is a 21-year-old college senior at UC Berkeley. She’s the first member of her family to ever graduate from high school and attend college, let alone one of the best public universities in the world. I want to find out how she got to where she…
Update: On December 28, President Obama has designated Bears Ears as a national monument. This historic action to protect an unique and culturally important land is part of our nation’s legacy to honor Native Americans and our shared history. In southeast Utah, five sovereign Native American nations have come together as the Bears Ears Inter-tribal…
The Hewlett Foundation’s Organizational Effectiveness (OE) program, created in 2004, seeks to help the foundation’s grantees be high-performing organizations, making their work – and ours – more likely to succeed. OE provides small grants to build grantees’ internal capacity in areas like strategic planning, board development, fundraising, and communications. In 2014, the foundation commissioned Social …
UPDATE: On October 12, parties to the Montreal Protocol reached an agreement to phase out use of climate-changing hydrofluorocarbons. “This is a historic moment in the fight to mitigate global warming, as well as a unique opportunity to improve quality of life in developing nations,” said Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which …