The Hewlett Family and Foundation History

William and Flora Hewlett shared a deep, persistent and personal belief in a life of charity and philanthropy.

When they established the foundation in 1966 in their Palo Alto home in California, they sought to formalize their many charitable impulses with a loose charter mandating only a “perpetual existence … as a charitable, religious, scientific, literary or educational foundation for the purpose of promoting the wellbeing of mankind.”

The Hewletts were a modest couple who often chose to give anonymously. Actions, more than words, provide the best evidence of their philanthropic vision. Flora was a board member and involved with the foundation for its first decade, until her death in 1977. Bill was actively engaged with the foundation until shortly before his death nearly 35 years after its launch. The couple’s gifts, donations and grants left a well-blazed trail.

Bill and Flora Hewlett cared not only about the issues and institutions they supported, but also innovation in the field of philanthropy itself. They wanted the foundation to reflect their own values—frugality, humility and collaboration—and be always willing to work with partners to address some of the most pressing problems in the Bay Area communities as well as the broader world.

After a decade of exploring alternative vehicles for philanthropy, Bill Hewlett, at the age of 53, formed the foundation. For him, the foundation was not a retirement project aimed at polishing his legacy; it was a startup venture. He began it small, changed leadership as needs emerged, and encouraged experimentation. He expanded the foundation deliberately as it grew more capable and as its assets increased.

Flora Hewlett was a quiet force behind the family and the foundation’s giving throughout her life.

She was a trustee of the San Francisco Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in San Anselmo, and served on the board of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. She also generously supported the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), a consortium of eight graduate schools of religion affiliated with the University of California at Berkeley. An advocate of tolerance in many forms, Flora was inspired by the ecumenical spirit of the GTU, created in 1962 in the wake of the flourishing World Council of Churches and the vernacular opening of the Catholic Church after Vatican II.

Her passing in 1977 was a huge emotional blow to Bill and their children, and served as a reminder of the natural limit to the time everyone has to improve the world, and a call to focus on the things that mattered most. She was an active participant in the foundation’s board meetings until a few weeks before her death. In recognition of her contribution, the foundation was renamed from “William R. Hewlett Foundation” to “The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.”

A few months after Flora’s death, the foundation named former University of California Chancellor Roger W. Heyns president. Bill Hewlett was named board chair, a new position.

Roger’s recruitment had begun while Flora was still alive. The prospect of him running the foundation delighted her. Roger would later call it his “happy assignment to understand [Flora’s] interests and express them intelligently through the foundation.” He recognized that she “would be the first to express that the foundation was not a vehicle for her personal wishes.” Societal needs changed, Flora’s priorities changed with them, and she did not want the foundation hamstrung by a too-limited understanding of challenges.

Roger Heyns’s 15-year leadership, until his retirement in 1993, transformed the Hewlett Foundation.

He maintained much of the Hewletts’ core beliefs about philanthropy. For example, he made more purposeful Bill’s practice of providing grants to institutions for general operations. At the same time, he reshaped the foundation — which had been making donations to organizations personally known to its president or board members — into a streamlined operation with dedicated professionals seeking out the most deserving efforts that align with core interest areas.

The changes were not always easy. The foundation funded its last grant in health care in 1977, after Roger decided that the field was amorphous and addressed by many other foundations. He let grantees know of the new policy gently, a kindness that Bill valued. Roger was “a born dedicated teacher,” Bill remarked. “He had to train me and the other Hewlett Foundation board members on how to run an organization of this size.”

Roger and Bill expanded the number of board of directors at the foundation. The Hewletts’ daughter Eleanor Hewlett Gimon joined the board, reflecting a desire by Bill for his children to participate in the foundation’s work; daughter Mary Hewlett Jaffe also joined.

While Bill was eager for his family to be involved, it was important for him to create a professional board. Non-family members have constituted a majority on the foundation’s board since 1981. The expanded board helped the foundation pursue collaboration, open up dialogue around big social problems, and bolster its national impact.

The foundation’s endowment grew at this time.  When Flora Hewlett passed away, the bulk of her estate was transferred to the foundation, and by 1981, the endowment had grown to more than $300 million. By the early 1990s, the foundation’s assets had increased more than thirtyfold — to more than $800 million, and the Hewlett Foundation was recognized for its work in the fields of conflict resolution, education, environment, performing arts, population, and was a key source of funding to organizations in the Bay Area.

In 1993 former University of California president David P. Gardner succeeded Roger Heyns as president of the foundation, and served for six years. David brought both breadth and focus to the programs during a period of rapid growth in the foundation’s assets, which increased to more than $2 billion. Annual grantmaking rose from $35 million in 1993 to $84 million in 1998.

While the foundation had previously funded environmental efforts mostly in California, David recommended expanding grantmaking to encompass the entire Western United States and Canada. The foundation also broadened its education funding to emphasize K-12 reform and developed a program on U.S.-Latin American relations.

Under David, term limits for program officers were formalized to ensure that the foundation’s programs would remain invigorated over time, that program officers would not confuse the foundation’s resources with their own or become over-connected to their grantees, and that program officers would understand their role to be a stepping stone to other work. The foundation board adopted a policy to limit program officers’ terms to six years and, with board approval, a three-year extension. This limit was extended to eight years in 2005.

In January 2000, Paul Brest, former dean of the Stanford Law School, became the new president of the foundation. One year later, on January 12, 2001, Bill Hewlett succumbed to heart failure. He was 87 years old.

At Bill Hewlett’s memorial service, in the church that Jane Stanford built and he quietly rebuilt, his many friends and colleagues spoke about his legacy, his impact on Silicon Valley, education and philanthropy.

In 2000, the year before Bill’s death, the foundation’s assets were $3.93 billion. By 2006, after Bill’s estate had transferred, the foundation’s assets were $8.52 billion, making it the fifth largest private foundation in America.

Bill Hewlett left no guidance on how he expected the foundation to be run and no specific directions on how its funds should be spent. Instead, he left an independent foundation imbued with his own curiosity, approaches to problem-solving, and generous and forgiving spirit. He also set a course for an institution that would embody a key component of the HP Way that he and his friend David Packard used to build their company — to seek out good people and give them full responsibility to carry out their ideas.

Paul Brest, the last foundation president to know Bill Hewlett, served from 2000 to 2012. He carried on the Hewlett Foundation’s long tradition of providing core operating support to nonprofit organizations and also became a leading voice among philanthropists – overseeing grants and publishing articles dedicated to improving the way foundations make and evaluate their grants.

During his tenure, the foundation launched a grantmaking initiative focused on stopping the dangerous effects of a rapidly warming planet and sought to expand the use of open educational resources.  Internally, the foundation merged its global development and population programs, professionalized several of its administrative units and moved into Menlo Park, Calif., offices that were the first Gold-level LEED certified building in the state.

In 2012, Larry Kramer became president of the foundation, and continues in that role today. Larry is also a former dean of Stanford Law School. Under his leadership, the foundation has continued the process of evolving and adapting. Work in the foundation’s core program areas has been supplemented by two new, time-bound initiatives to address timely problems: the polarization hampering the effectiveness of U.S. government, and the complex policy challenges of the nascent field of cybersecurity. In addition, the foundation has adapted its approach to outcome-focused philanthropy.  In 2015 Stephen C. Neal, a board member since 2006, was named board chair, succeeding Walter Hewlett.

Maintaining continuity with the ethos of Bill and Flora Hewlett is a central focus of Larry’s presidency. As he said in 2015: “The best way to understand and think about the Hewlett Foundation’s values and practice is in light of its history. Our endowment comes from the personal fortune of William and Flora Hewlett. The foundation began as an expression of their philanthropic values, and while they left their successors broad discretion about problems to work on, we believe the work we do today needs to be continuous with and reflective of their values. That applies both to how we work and to what we work on.

“When I interviewed for the job of president, I explained to the board that I would think about these issues in much the same way as I think about constitutional law. I am not an originalist, and we should not mindlessly continue to do exactly what Bill and Flora did, for the world is continually changing, and standing still means falling behind. But neither should we feel free to do whatever seems most interesting or important to me or to the current board or staff.

“We are, rather, engaged in an ongoing conversation with our past—looking at the problems Bill and Flora cared about and the reasons they cared about them, and reshaping our work to remain continuous with those values and concerns in changing circumstances.”

Note: This history is adapted from “The founding of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,” by Leslie Berlin and Glenn Bugos.