Pritzker Innovation Fund

It is funded by the Pritzker family, the founders and heirs of the Hyatt Hotels chain. ^{2 3} The Pritzker family is also prominent in Democratic Party politics: J.B. Pritzker has served as governor of Illinois since his first election in 2018, and Penny Pritzker was Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration. ⁴

In 2024, it was reported that the Pritzker Innovation Fund funded scientists from the University of Washington who were investigating altering clouds to combat climate change by reflecting the sun’s rays from atmosphere and back into space. The scientists shut down their research after local officials and residents expressed opposition to their experiments. ⁵

Background

According to the group’s website, a primary focus of the Pritzker Innovation Fund is climate and energy while supporting “think tanks, academic institutions, and advocacy organizations driving new ideas in the climate and energy debate.” ⁶ The group also claims to focus on areas it claims are “overlooked and underfunded” such as “energy poverty, nuclear power, carbon removal, and sunlight reflection.” ⁶

The website also lists “U.S Democracy” as a focus area by supporting “cross-ideological convening spaces and networks and the development of new intellectual frameworks for democracy and policy” to prevent “hyperpolarization and hyperpartisanship.” ⁶ The Fund also supports efforts to “defend and revitalize democratic norms, values, and institutions.” ⁶

Grantmaking and Partnerships

The Pritzker Innovation Fund is a principal funder of the Energy for Growth Hub alongside the Rockefeller Foundation and the Spitzer Charitable Trust. ⁷ The Energy for Growth Hub is a global network of researchers, policymakers, and advocates that work in issues related to energy access and consumption. ⁸ The fund also partners with various organizations such as the Third Way and the Breakthrough Institute. ¹

Third Way is a left-of-center think tank and advocacy organization that works toward achieving its political agenda through advocacy campaigns and research. ⁹ The Breakthrough Institute is a pro-nuclear-energy environmentalist organization that promotes an alternate environmentalist program it calls “ecomodernism” and seeks to help the environment by making low-carbon energy cheap. ¹⁰

Nuclear Energy

The Pritzker Innovation Fund supports nuclear-energy research. In 2013, the group’s founder and president, Rachel Pritzker, wrote an op-ed for CNN urging people on the left to support nuclear energy. ¹¹

Pritzker wrote, “We need all the help we can get from renewable energy, but it’s a risky bet that wind and solar alone will be able to provide 100% of America’s energy, let alone meet a global energy demand three times the size it is today. If we are going to address climate change and help the global poor live longer, healthier lives, then, we need to begin a vigorous public discussion about other low-carbon energy options that are quickly scalable—including nuclear power. Whatever your view, this is a conversation worth having. My own interest in creating a dialogue about nuclear energy inspired me to become one of the backers of the independent documentary, “Pandora’s Promise,” which chronicles the conversion stories of prominent environmentalists who have become pro-nuclear.” ¹¹

Pritzker also pointed out that countries in the developing world were increasing their energy consumption to try and live the types of lifestyles that are more common in the developed world. Pritzker claimed that energy demand was poised to triple, if not quadruple, in the coming century. ¹¹

Weather-Altering Experiments

In June 2024, Politico reported that the Pritzker Innovation Fund, among other groups, funded an attempt by scientists at the University of Washington to alter clouds by having them reflect solar rays back into the atmosphere to combat global warming. The plan was for scientists to conduct their experiment from a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, in San Francisco Bay. The Hornet is now a Smithsonian-affiliated museum. The experiment was stopped after Alameda, California officials rejected a push from the scientists to continue their experiments after public outcry against the geoengineering plans. ⁵

Rachel Pritzker, the founder and president of the Pritzker Innovation Fund, expressed continued support for the experiments. “The Pritzker Innovation Fund believes in the importance of research that helps improve climate models and enables policymakers and the public to better understand whether climate interventions like marine cloud brightening are feasible and advisable,” Pritzker said in a statement. “We will only get answers to these questions through open research that can inform science-based, democratic decision-making.” ⁵

Pritzker continued to praise the scientists and the group SilverLining, a group which leads efforts to support geoengineering research. Pritzker called the Hornet experiments “a fantastic model for educating the public on this important type of research and we hope there are more such opportunities in the future.” ⁵

Questioning Partisanship

In April 2024, Rachel Pritzker wrote an op-ed for the Chronicle of Philanthropy where she questioned her past partisan giving. “But at a certain point, I came to see that my efforts, under the banner of ‘democracy,’ were actually furthering the decline of democracy. Our passionate advocacy, while aimed at strengthening the country, was contributing to mounting gridlock and toxic partisanship. Democratic elected officials felt increasingly pressured to adhere to party orthodoxy rather than passing legislation through compromise, lest they be primaried by a progressive group for being insufficiently pure. Recognizing the extraordinary period of U.S. and global democratic backsliding in which we live, I have since shifted my philanthropy toward creating spaces, such as the Democracy Funders Network, where supporters of liberal democracy from across the political spectrum can step out of our ideological bubbles, build new relationships, and learn together how to defend democracy.” ¹²

Pritzker urged coalitions to be built around issues “such as building healthy norms and institutions (e.g., a free press, an independent judiciary, individual rights, and the rule of law); creating a government that is responsive and effective; and developing an economic and social agenda that can help reduce the demand for illiberal policies, such as revitalization of rural America, rebuilding local media, and improving the status of working-class men.” ¹²

Leadership

Rachel Pritzker Hunter is the president and founder of the Pritzker Innovation Fund ¹ and has been involved with other left-of-center organizations such as the Democracy Alliance, Media Matters for America and Third Way. ¹³ She is also a major Democratic donor in her own right. ¹⁴ She is a member of the Pritzker family that founded the Hyatt Hotels chain, ³ and is the daughter of Linda Pritzker, a former member of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list ¹⁴ and a major Democratic donor. ¹⁵

Roland Pritzker is the chairman of the Pritzker Innovation Fund. He studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Colorado and sustainable business at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. ¹ He is the brother of Rachel Pritzker. ¹⁶

Mike Berkowitz is a senior advisor of the Pritzker Innovation Fund. He is the co-founder and principal at Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies, a social impact strategy firm. Berkowitz formerly worked as a lead consultant to the Democracy Alliance. ¹