I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles in the embrace of yellow-brown chaparral hills that would burst briefly into verdant green after rare winter rains. My family home was, and still is, nestled in the southern foothills of my hometown. Twice during my childhood, a portion of those yellow-brown hills burst instead into…
The compounding and connected crises of the last few months — the COVID pandemic and its inequitable toll on Black and Latinx communities, the unprecedented politicization of public health, economic crises hitting Main Street harder than Wall Street, the rallying cries to address deep-seated racism in public institutions meant to protect and serve all Americans…
In 2017, the Hewlett Foundation’s board renewed its third five-year commitment to our Climate Initiative. The new climate strategy aims to achieve deep decarbonization by midcentury, focusing on the biggest emitting regions (the United States, China, India and Europe), six thematic areas (Transportation; Electricity; Industry; Finance; Strategic Communications and Carbon dioxide removal). This strategy is …
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders have dramatically reshaped our lives, turning the world upside down while highlighting the value of essential workers who provide the goods and services we all need to live. Health care workers, farmers, food processors, utility workers and others go to work every day to keep…
The overarching goal of the Hewlett Foundation’s Open Education strategy is to strengthen every student’s learning experiences by the effective use of open educational resources and practices. To do that, we prioritize developing effective pedagogy and practice along with content, building capacity for education systems to implement OER, and supporting a field that is responsive …
I grew up with a window into the life of educators — my mom was an elementary school teacher, and my dad was a principal for most of his career. Today, a lot more of us are getting a glimpse into that world. COVID-19 has meant that our children have to stay home from school,…
The who, how, and where of the arts in the San Francisco Bay Area is changing. And we need to change with it. As the grantees of the Hewlett Foundation Performing Arts Program well know, the Bay Area arts community is at an inflection point. Artists, arts organizations and the people who lead them are…
The Hewlett Foundation has long supported U.S. reproductive health and rights, and recently expanded grantmaking to support youth-led organizing, engagement, and leadership. Hewlett program fellow Leticia Corona explains what the grants support and why it matters. What do these new grants aim to do? This three-year, $2.5 million grantmaking portfolio focuses on youth-led, multi-issue organizations…
The Hewlett Foundation has been actively working to reduce GHG emissions for more than a decade. Our grants have focused on cleaning up electric power production, using less oil, using energy more efficiently, preserving forests, addressing non-CO2 greenhouse gases, and financing climate-friendly investments. Thus far, our grantmaking has mainly targeted countries and regions with high …
2018 marks the Hewlett Foundation’s first year with a stand-alone grantmaking portfolio for climate and clean energy finance within our environment program. The long-term (2050) ambition for this grantmaking portfolio is to mobilize at least $1 trillion annually to support interventions that further the goals of the Paris Agreement. We hope to make substantial progress…