For those of us working to support citizens in low- and middle-income countries to better understand how their governments collect and spend public money and use that information to encourage government officials to improve health, education, and other public services, we have much to learn. This is why we created a learning sub-strategy to guide…
In November 2017—a year earlier than originally planned due to the increased salience of cybersecurity issues after many high-profile breaches and growing threats to democratic institutions in a number of Western countries—the Hewlett Foundation’s board approved a renewal of our Cyber Initiative, budgeting $10 million per year for grantmaking through 2023. Along with the renewal, …
Every five years, as a part of outcome-focused philanthropy, Hewlett Foundation programs undertake a thorough review of our grantmaking strategies. This deeper and comprehensive look at grantmaking results in a revised approach for the next five years. As a part of this process, the Western Conservation team drew on a retrospective evaluation of its grantmaking program; a …
Launched in 2004, the Hewlett Foundation’s Organizational Effectiveness (OE) program helps the foundation’s grantees build the internal capacity and resiliency needed to navigate challenges, growth, and other opportunities to sustain and thrive in our ever-changing world. The OE program provides relatively small grants of targeted support to grantees across all the foundation’s core programs to …
The Hewlett Foundation’s Madison Initiative focuses on strengthening U.S. democracy and its institutions—especially Congress—in a time of political polarization. Launched in 2014, the initiative is nonpartisan and supports nonprofit organizations across the ideological spectrum—academic researchers, advocacy groups, think tanks, and civic leadership organizations—who seek to understand and improve the political system so that elected representatives …
Last year we asked for feedback on three draft substrategies to guide our transparency, participation, and accountability grantmaking. We received feedback from 17 organizations. Their comments prompted valuable discussions among our team and helped refine our substrategies, which are available below in English, Spanish and French. What follows is a brief summary of how each program officer responded to…
I’d love to say we saw what was coming when we launched the Cyber Initiative in 2014. But no one could have guessed how quickly cybersecurity would become what Berkeley’s Steve Weber calls “the master problem of the Internet era.” Yet the relentless stream of cybersecurity crises only highlights the gap we noticed four years …
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been investing for a number of years in various strategies to avoid the worst effects of climate change and spare human suffering by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Those grants have aimed at cleaning up power production, using less oil, using energy more efficiently, preserving forests, addressing non-CO2 …
Organizations working to increase government transparency, citizen participation, and public sector accountability know they have a lot to learn – and a lot to share with others. They have an appetite for inquiry and reflection that pushes us all to be smarter and more effective. We’re trying to make the most of this intellectual energy …
How can citizens around the world hold their governments accountable for high-quality public services like education, health care, and water? There are no perfect answers to that complex question, but we have a hunch: Our hypothesis is that, in combination, more information about how governments raise and spend money, active participation by people in the…