MENLO PARK, Calif. – From pilot programs that teach reading and math to children in Uganda and Kenya to an Oakland record company that teaches leadership to urban youth, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has announced over $154 million in new grants to 287 organizations.
Organizations receiving grants ranged across the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout the world in the Foundation’s six primary areas of grantmaking: global development, education, performing arts, philanthropy, the environment, and population. Among the highlights of the grants awarded to date this year are:
Global Development – Teaching Reading and Math in Uganda and Kenya
The Global Development Program, which is dedicated to reducing extreme poverty in the developing world, made $27,775,000 in grants to 37 organizations.
Getting children into school is a first step toward reducing poverty. But attending school does not guarantee learning. The Hewlett Foundation, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is working to make education in the developing world effective with grants to organizations like the Aga Khan Foundation USA. A new $2.1 million grant to this organization will be used to launch model programs for teaching primary school reading and math in two districts each in Uganda and Kenya. A related grant of $807,000 to the African Population and Health Research Centre in Nairobi will fund an evaluation of this project.
The Program also made a $1.2 million grant to the National Security Archive Fund – an independent, nonprofit institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. – which works to promote transparency and openness in government in the United States and worldwide. The grant will help the Fund continue its work in Mexico as well as develop a system for measuring government openness throughout the world, among other projects.
Education – Supporting Journalism about Public Policy
The Education Program, which makes grants to improve education across California and around the world, awarded $31,118,750 in grants to 56 organizations.
Informing the public is critical to making sound education policies, but California, like the rest of the nation, has fewer journalists than ever to do the work. A $1.2 million grant to the Center for Investigative Reporting will be used to build a team of experienced reporters to cover California education and other policy issues and publish the resulting news stories through a network of multimedia outlets around the state.
The Program will spend $3.5 million in grants to help school districts and other education institutions nationwide plan for the effective use of federal economic stimulus money earmarked for education. The grants include $725,000 to Education Resource Strategies in Wayland, Massachusetts, to conduct workshops with school superintendents and financial officers to help them analyze tradeoffs in different uses of the funding, as well as create online tools to conduct financial analysis. A grant of $600,000 to the North American Council for Online Learning in Washington, D.C., will be used to promote Open Educational Resources, including online textbooks and other courseware that are freely available.
Performing Arts – Backing a New Generation of Artistic Endeavor
The Performing Arts Program, the largest funder of performing arts organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, made $11,171,920 in grants to 71 organizations.
Recognizing the importance of new organizations in bringing the performing arts to the broadest possible audience, the Foundation awarded $200,000 to Youth Movement Records in Oakland to support its work immersing youth in leadership, entrepreneurship, artistic development, and community involvement; $105,000 to Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project in San Francisco to promote the creation, exhibition, and distribution of new films and videos; $225,000 to The Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance in Berkeley for its concentrated curriculum for musicians and singers of all ages and skill levels; and $110,000 to Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco, sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, for its work bringing together diverse strands of the artistic community in the city’s Mission District.
The Program also made a $2 million grant to the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz to help this new artist housing and performance center reach its fundraising goals and complete construction of its eight-acre campus.
Philanthropy – Working to Increase the Impact of Giving
The Philanthropy Program, which awards grants to promote effective charitable giving, made $3,371,000 in grants to 14 organizations.
Like any market, the nonprofit marketplace is built on a connection between supply and demand. In this marketplace, transactions occur between philanthropists who make donations and the nonprofit organizations that use them to improve the world. With that in mind, the Program made a grant of $1 million to the Center for Effective Philanthropy to support its work of surveying foundation grantees to help improve the effectiveness of donors.
A grant of $300,000 went to Root Cause in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for its Social Impact Research project, which systematically informs financial advisors about nonprofit performance through reports modeled after equity research documents in the private sector. Root Cause also is working to create standards so organizations can easily share this type of research.
Environment – Reducing Greenhouse Gas and Protecting Western Lands
The Environment Program, which makes grants to protect western lands and address the problem of climate change, announced $29,294,000 in grants to 57 organizations.
One of the nation’s most effective and broad-ranging nonprofit organizations working on energy and climate is the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation. Its programs seek to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and China through an array of different strategies. To support this work, Hewlett awarded $6.3 million to the Energy Foundation.
Working throughout the West, the National Conservation System Foundation strives to protect the biological diversity, scenic vistas, and cultural resources of U.S. public lands. A Hewlett Foundation grant of $400,000 will allow it to expand that work and help ensure wise management of some of the West’s key pristine ecosystems.
Population – Researching the Role of Population Dynamics on Poverty
The Population Program, which makes grants to improve family planning and reproductive health in the United States and around the world, gave $44,327,375 in grants to 41 organizations.
The Hewlett Foundation’s lead grantee in its work to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies in the United States is the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. A grant of $11,905,000 to the Campaign will further its approach of working with a broad range of partners – from Latina youth groups to entertainment media – by emphasizing areas of agreement. It employs numerous strategies including the promotion of responsible policies on the part of government and private industry, as well as encouraging personal responsibility.
Research has begun to illuminate how reproductive health and population dynamics affect a country’s poverty and economic growth, but much remains to be done to understand these relationships. To learn more about them at both the national and household levels, the Hewlett Foundation has partnered with the Research Council of Norway to each provide $2 million to Norwegian and African scholars who will research these issues, particularly as they apply to sub-Saharan Africa.
A full list of Hewlett Foundation grantees, along with links to their Web sites, is available online.
About The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been making grants since 1967 to help solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. The Foundation concentrates its resources on activities in education, the environment, global development, performing arts, philanthropy, and population, and makes grants to support disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Contact:
Jack Fischer
Hewlett Foundation Communications Officer
(650) 234-4500 ext. 5744
jfischer@hewlett.org