MENLO PARK, Calif. – The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has awarded $57 million in new grants to a total of 160 different organizations in the fourth quarter of 2004.
The Foundation also announced that it has reorganized several of its programs for 2005. One major change includes the creation of a new Global Development Program, which will make grants to help reduce poverty in the developing world. This program will focus on making foreign aid more efficient, as well as funding programs and research designed to remove barriers to agricultural trade in the poorest countries. More details on the new program will be made available soon.
Under this new alignment, the Foundation’s continuing work in Mexico that occurred within its U.S.-Latin American Relations Program will now be housed within the new Global Development Program. Air quality and transportation projects in Brazil and Mexico will now be funded from the Foundation’s Environment Program. The Foundation’s newly realigned Mexico portfolio will focus on the following priority areas: government transparency and accountability, philanthropy, and Mexican academic institutions and think tanks that provide the knowledge base for development.
Some highlighted new grants awarded in the fourth quarter of 2004 include:
Education Program – California’s Community Colleges
In the face of severe budgetary challenges, the Foundation announced a total of $7,916,000 in grants to education programs nationwide, including a $1,200,000 grant to the Menlo Park-based Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This grant will provide support for California community colleges to improve instruction in mathematics and English language arts courses.
Environment Program – National Energy Commission
The Foundation announced $10,017,000 in grants from its Environment Program, including a $2 million award to the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan panel that will release a broad set of recommendations on December 8. This funding will allow the Commission to follow up on its recommendations with key partners nationwide.
Performing Arts Program – Bay Area Artists
Funding continues to be as hard to come by for performing arts organizations as it is for individual artists. In that context, the Hewlett Foundation is partnering with several other foundations to provide funding for the creation of new work, artist-in-residencies in area schools, and collaborative performing arts projects with community-based organizations. The Foundation has awarded $1,425,000 in grants in a partnership with the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the Marin Community Foundation and the Walter & Elise Haas Fund. In total, the Foundation awarded a total of $4,658,000 in grants to 33 Bay Area performing arts organizations. Grants were awarded to a broad spectrum of primarily dance and film organizations such as Oakland Ballet, Project Bandaloop, Chhandam Chitresh Das Dance Company, Film Arts Foundation, Frameline, and Pacific Film Archive.
Population Program – Quality Reproductive Health Services
The Hewlett Foundation will provide $13,580,000 million in new funding to a total of 25 organizations working to improve access to quality reproductive health services. The Foundation has awarded $4 million to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, America’s oldest and largest non-governmental reproductive health care organization.
About The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been making grants since 1966 to help solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. The Foundation concentrates its resources on activities in education, environment, global development, performing arts, philanthropy, population, and makes grants to support disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. A complete list of all of the Hewlett Foundation’s grants dating back to 1999 can be found at www.hewlett.org/grants.