The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust has awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy to the Hewlett Family. Named after Scots-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the Medal is regarded as the Nobel Prize of philanthropy.
Eleanor Hewlett Gimon, daughter of William and Flora Hewlett, accepted the Medal on behalf of the family at an award ceremony that took place at the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh on October 4, 2005 and was preceded by an international philanthropy symposium.
At the ceremony, Eleanor Gimon said that her parents’ philanthropic spirit lives on in the work of the Hewlett Foundation and the Flora Family Foundation.
“My father never expected to accumulate great wealth, but when he did it was clear to both my parents that they needed to find a way to give it away,” Gimon said. “They founded the Hewlett Foundation in 1966 to help solve important social and environmental problems and to try to improve the community in which they lived.”
Quoting her daughter, Gimon said that the greatest gift Bill Hewlett left to future generations was his moral compass: “Its cardinal points were knowledge, modesty, justice, and hard work.”
Presented every two years to inspirational philanthropists and their families who have dedicated their private wealth to public good, previous recipients of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy include the Gates, Rockefeller, and Annenberg families. The Packard Family was also honored with a Carnegie Medal at the October ceremony.
“Recipients of the Medal share Andrew Carnegie’s vision that distributing one’s accumulated wealth for the common good is just as important a task as building up that wealth,” said William Thompson, great grandson of Andrew Carnegie and Chair of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy 2005 Organizing Committee. Andrew Carnegie gave away the equivalent of nearly $15 billion dollars, establishing a family of foundations worldwide.
Other 2005 honorees include, His Highness, the Aga Khan; Anna Southall, Chair of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, on behalf of the Cadbury family; Sir Tom Farmer, Scots billionaire founder of Kwik-Fit; and Agnes Gund, chair of the New York Museum of Modern Art.
For more information about the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, or to access streaming video of the 2005 award ceremony visit: http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk