# William and Flora Hewlett Foundation **Draft profile.** Major progressive philanthropic foundation based in **Menlo Park, California**, established **1966** by **William Redington Hewlett** (Hewlett-Packard co-founder) and his wife **Flora Lamson Hewlett**. As of December 2024, the foundation's assets were approximately **$13.9 billion** — the **ninth-wealthiest grantmaking foundation in the world**. In 2024, awarded **$631 million in grants**, with **nearly three-fourths as flexible (unrestricted) funding** — a notable operational distinction from many peer foundations. The Hewlett Foundation is **one of the two HP-co-founder foundations** (alongside [[Packard Foundation]]) that together represent the **Bay Area tech-origin progressive philanthropy template** — older, established, structurally similar to the [[Ford Foundation]] / [[Rockefeller Foundation]] / [[MacArthur Foundation]] cluster but with distinctively California-coded culture. ## Focus Areas Hewlett organizes around eight programs, with **Climate** as the structurally dominant area: ### Environment (climate) **The largest single program.** Hewlett committed **$600M to climate change** in 2018 (one of the largest single climate-philanthropy commitments in history at the time). Focus on **decarbonizing the U.S., Europe, China, and India** — the four largest emitter regions. Major grantmaker to **ClimateWorks Foundation** and the broader climate-philanthropy regranter ecosystem. ### U.S. Democracy **Growing program** since the late 2010s — election administration, voting rights, civic engagement, journalism, civic-technology infrastructure. Increasing share of total giving. ### Racial Justice Cross-cutting work added to formal program structure in the post-2020 period. ### Gender Equity and Governance Global reproductive rights, gender-equity advocacy, governance work in developing-country contexts. ### Economy and Society Macro-economic-policy and labor-economics work — particularly post-2008 thinking on the "future of capitalism." ### Education **Open Educational Resources (OER)** — Hewlett has been the single largest U.S. philanthropic supporter of open-textbook and open-curriculum work for over two decades. ### Performing Arts Significant support for Bay Area cultural institutions. ### Effective Philanthropy **Meta-program** — funds work on improving the practice of philanthropy itself, including the Center for Effective Philanthropy. ## Why It Matters in This KB ### 1. It is the closest Hewlett-Packard wealth equivalent to a traditional East Coast progressive foundation Where the [[Packard Foundation]] is structurally more science-and-conservation-coded, Hewlett is the **policy-and-democracy-coded HP-co-founder foundation**. The two together represent the **Bay Area tech-origin philanthropic legacy** that predates the contemporary tech-billionaire generation by decades. ### 2. The climate commitment is structurally important Hewlett's $600M+ climate commitment (and continuing $100M+ annual climate giving) puts it among the **top 3–5 climate philanthropies globally**, with [[Bloomberg Philanthropies]], [[Rockefeller Foundation]], [[ClimateWorks Foundation]] (which Hewlett substantially funds), and a small handful of others. **Tracking Hewlett climate giving is tracking the leading edge of philanthropic climate strategy.** ### 3. The flexible-funding posture is operationally distinctive **75%+ flexible (unrestricted) funding** is unusually high for a foundation Hewlett's size. Most peer foundations route a much larger share through restricted, project-specific grants. The flexible-funding posture reflects a **strong grantee-autonomy philosophy** that is associated with the broader "trust-based philanthropy" movement Hewlett has helped champion. ### 4. The Open Educational Resources legacy is consequential Hewlett's two-decade-plus support for OER is the single largest reason **Creative Commons, OpenStax, and the broader open-textbook ecosystem exist**. This is a structurally underrated case of philanthropic field-building that has produced enduring institutional infrastructure. ### 5. It is the structural template for "professional, post-family" foundation governance The Hewlett family stepped back from active foundation governance long before peer-foundation founders did. The Hewlett model — **professional staff with arms-length family involvement** — is the template many later tech-origin foundations have studied (CZI specifically and explicitly chose the LLC structure partly to avoid this exact governance evolution). ## Critiques - **Standard professional-foundation critique** — concentration of decision-making in professional staff, slow turnaround, scale-related accountability gaps. - **Climate-philanthropy strategy debates** — Hewlett has been criticized (and defended) for its concentrated funding of certain climate-policy organizations and approaches. - **Open Educational Resources sustainability concerns** — critics have argued that Hewlett-dependent OER projects have struggled to become self-sustaining. ## Draft Notes / To Expand - Add [[William Hewlett]] profile - Add [[Larry Kramer]] profile (former president, now departed) - Document current president and recent strategic shifts - Trace the **ClimateWorks Foundation** relationship and Hewlett's role in the climate-philanthropy regranter ecosystem - Detail the **Open Educational Resources** funding history (Creative Commons, OpenStax, etc.) - Map Hewlett's relationship to [[Packard Foundation]] (different operations, overlapping HP wealth origin) - Investigate the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project (Hewlett-supported) ## See Also - [[William Hewlett]] — Co-founder (currently unlinked) - [[Flora Hewlett]] — Co-founder (currently unlinked) - [[Packard Foundation]] — HP-co-founder counterpart foundation - [[Ford Foundation]] — Adjacent progressive foundation - [[MacArthur Foundation]] — Adjacent progressive foundation - [[Rockefeller Foundation]] — Adjacent progressive foundation - [[Open Society Foundations]] — Adjacent progressive foundation - [[Philanthropy Ecosystem]] — Money-flow MOC