William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

According to SWF Institute, in 2023 the Hewlett Foundation was the ninth-wealthiest grantmaking foundation in the world with over $13 billion in assets. ³

The foundation’s program areas are Education, Environment, Global Development and Population, Performing Arts, Madison Initiative, Cyber, Effective Philanthropy, San Francisco Bay Area, and Special Projects. ⁴

Overview

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation claims to fund organizations that value objectivity, collaboration, and non-partisan solutions to divisive issues as opposed to “single-issue, single-value groups that have as their main focus the influencing of government policy.”^{5 6} While Hewlett has indeed supported many non-partisan efforts, it has also devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to numerous organizations whose missions are demonstrably political and focused on influencing government policy. Since its first year of grantmaking in 1967, for example, Hewlett’s population program has continuously supported Planned Parenthood, the combative abortion-rights association and abortion provider.⁷⁸

Hewlett granted over $100 million to Planned Parenthood between 2000 and 2023, ^{9 10} and as of 2017, is the organization’s second largest private benefactor after the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. ¹¹ Since 1995, Hewlett has also given over $6 million to Catholics for Choice,¹² a radical organization of self-identified Catholics who do not recognize the authority of the Catholic Church on abortion or contraception,¹³ support late-term abortions,¹⁴ and launch publicity efforts deliberately antagonistic toward the Catholic Church. ^{15 16 17}

Hewlett maintains that “climate change is the defining issue of our day” and is “an urgent global crisis that affects every problem philanthropy seeks to solve, whether it’s improving health, alleviating poverty, reducing famine, promoting peace, or advancing social justice.” ¹⁸ As a result, the foundation provides grants to organizations that push governmental “policy solutions,” including increasingly stringent carbon caps, taxes, fuel economy standards, building codes, and household appliance efficiency standards, as well as subsidies for wind, geothermal, solar, biomass, biofuels, electricity, and hydrogen. ^{19 20} Hewlett pursues these policy goals through ClimateWorks—a separate foundation created by Hewlett and several other charitable organizations in 2008 with a five-year $500 million commitment from Hewlett alone—and many other progressive foundations including Environment Foundation, Sierra Club, Earth Island Institute, Water Foundation, EarthJustice, Greenfaith, Earth Day Network, and Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport, among others. ^{21 22}

The Foundation’s former president, Larry Kramer, was a former constitutional law professor and the dean of Stanford Law School who has prided himself on not being an “originalist,” a school of legal interpretation associated with right-leaning judges, legal advocates, and approaches ²³ Kramer stepped down as president of the Hewlett Foundation at the end of 2023 in order to become president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics.²⁴

Hewlett was previously listed as a “partner” organization for clean energy advocacy group Inclusive Prosperity Capital. ²⁵ In May 2024, the group was awarded a $249.3 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to be paid over a 5-year period, for the purpose of funding solar panel development for “low-income and disadvantaged communities,” or (LIDACs). ^{26 27}

According to its 2023 990 form, Hewlett reported a revenue of $602,064,005, expenses of $699,937,452, and total assets of $13,332,174,215. ²⁸

History

Early Years

Established in 1966 by Hewlett-Packard co-founder William R. Hewlett, his wife, Flora Lamson Hewlett, and their eldest son, Walter Hewlett, the foundation’s articles of incorporation stated that the corporation “is organized and shall be operated exclusively as a charitable, religious, scientific, literary or educational foundation for the purpose of promoting the well being of mankind.” During its first ten years, the Hewletts ran the foundation, chose its beneficiaries, and gave the foundation stock in Hewlett-Packard Company. Board meetings were informal and not held on a strict schedule. By 1975, disbursements were nearly three million dollars annually. ²⁹

In 1967, its first year of giving, the foundation granted $55,000, roughly 25% of its total giving budget, to Planned Parenthood, inspired by “the conviction that current population trends constitute one of the major threats to human happiness and fulfillment.” Also that year, Hewlett devoted $100,000 to support education (California Institute of Technology and Stanford University), and $70,000 to the arts and humanities (the San Francisco Symphony Association and the San Francisco public television station KQED). Over the next ten years, the foundation would significantly increase the number and dollar amount of its annual giving, add new programs (environmental, health, and social services), and continue to fund Planned Parenthood annually. ³⁰

Professional Era

Former University of California Chancellor Roger Heyns became the foundation’s first non-family president in June 1977, at which point William Hewlett assumed the role of Chairman of the Board. Heyns would transform the organization from a relatively small philanthropy donating to organizations personally known to its founders and board into “a streamlined operation with dedicated professionals seeking out the most deserving efforts.” ²³ Later that same year, the foundation published its first annual report in which Heyns articulated the foundation’s enthusiasm for providing general operating support, an approach that continues today: “We have provided general support funds to institutions whose leadership has a demonstrated capacity for sound judgment in allocating scarce resources. While we may on occasion, in making a general support grant, indicate a special interest in particular programs, the grant provides flexibility so that when appropriate, the needs of the organization for planning, project development, and general supervision can be at least partially met.” ³¹

In the 1977 annual report, Heyns and the Hewletts also introduced a new guiding principle regarding the foundation’s environmental program: “to support policy-oriented studies that promise to improve the quality of decision-making…” The foundation argued that, “Opposing groups on most issues have developed substantial analytical resources and political power, while organizations that seek policy options or integrated solutions…have less strength and moral support.” As a result, the foundation would fund organizations with “a record of sound, objective, policy-related analyses of environmental issues… [and] mechanisms for resolving environmental disputes in a less divisive manner than currently prevails.” ⁶

In his President’s Statement accompanying the organization’s 1978 Annual Report, Roger Heyns echoed the theme of the 1977 report by lamenting the rise of special-interests, especially those “engendered by single-issue, single-value groups that have as their main focus the influencing of government policy.” A result of this divisiveness, Heyns argued, “has been the gradual undermining of organizations with heterogeneous memberships… that provide broad representation of the public interest,” and whose “absence guarantees a weakening of consensus… and, ultimately, the loss of the mutual respect that is necessary if a complex society is to function effectively.” ³²

Several of Hewlett Foundation’s 1978 grants, however, appear to contradict this embrace of collaboration and diversity. Perhaps the strongest example is the foundation contributing another $90,000 to Planned Parenthood, ³³ very much a “special interest” and “single-value” group whose then-president Faye Wattleton had been noted for her combativeness earlier in the year by the New York Times. Faye was quoted as saying that she is “putting the world on notice” that Planned Parenthood would be assuming a more aggressive public posture, especially in regard to its “enemies” in the pro-life movement. ³⁴

Other examples include funding of solidly progressive population and environmental organizations including Pathfinder Fund, Alan Guttmacher Institute, Population Council, and the Urban Environment Foundation. ³⁵ Urban Environment Foundation was created by the Urban Environment Conference, which had described the handling of toxic waste in the U.S. as  “attempted genocide.” ³⁶

Period of Expansion

Over the next 15 years, Hewlett Foundation significantly increased the number of ballets, symphonies, operas, and other classical arts programs it supported, as well as liberal arts colleges, private historically black colleges, and major research universities. The foundation also expanded the number of organizations it supported in the environmental and population programs, adding Sierra Club, Oceanic Society, Worldwatch Institute, Centre for Population Activities, Center for Population Options, and National Alliance for Optional Parenthood. ³⁷

Heyns also oversaw the increase of regional grants. Many of these funded organizations focused on community development and low-income assistance in the Bay area. Some were quite radical, like Gloria Steinem’s Women’s Action Alliance, Center for Community Change, and Tides Foundation. Through Special Projects the foundation began funding think tanks, many of them left-of-center, like the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. The Hewlett Foundation also made a handful of contributions to center-right organizations like the Ethics and Public Policy Center. ^{38 39}

By Heyns’ retirement in 1993, Hewlett Foundation had grown to $875 million in assets, was disbursing more than $35 million each year and had added Conflict Resolution to its existing categories of Arts and Humanities, Education, Environment, Population, and Regional Grants. ⁴⁰

Former University of California president David P. Gardner served as president from 1993 until 2000, another period of rapid growth in the foundation’s assets, which increased to more than $2 billion. During his tenure, Gardner added a Pluralism and Unity subcategory for the Education program that sought to promote “appreciation for both diversity and the common good.” Gardner also oversaw the addition of more radical organizations to the foundation’s list of grantees, including Catholics for Choice, a group of disaffected Catholics who do not recognize the authority of the Church on abortion or contraception. ¹³

Former dean of the Stanford Law School Paul Brest became president in 2000 bringing with him a passion for “strategic philanthropy,” an evidence- and outcome-based donor philosophy for “maximizing the social impact of foundation grants to nonprofit organizations.” Lamenting the existing state of philanthropy, Brest griped, “I don’t think this is a field with any significant professional standards… It is only a bit of an exaggeration to say it’s a field held together by a section of the tax code…” ⁴¹ Brest’s vision for strategic philanthropy at Hewlett, on the other hand, would specify objectives and articulate a plan for amassing the resources to achieve them, seek grantees that shared Hewlett’s objectives, ensure that grantees had the ability to fulfill them, demand that Hewlett and its grantees convey how they would assess progress toward their objectives, and “take reasonable steps” to measure that progress and evaluate outcomes. ⁴² So convinced of the potential for strategic philanthropy, Brest even co-authored a book on the subject in 2008, Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy. ⁴³

When William Hewlett died in 2001, the large estate he left to the foundation brought its assets to $8.52 billion, which made it the fifth-largest private foundation in America. ²³

Left-of Center Behemoth

In 2008, Hewlett partnered with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the Oak Foundation to create the ClimateWorks Foundation. ⁴⁴ Predicated on the belief that global warming is “largely the result of human activity,” ClimateWorks “subscribes to the international goal of holding the increase in global average temperature this century to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C” and reducing “global greenhouse gas emissions to an annual total of 35 billion metric tons by 2030, and eventually cut net-emissions to zero.” Convinced that “determined government action — locally, nationally, and globally” is essential to reaching these goals, ClimateWorks’ mission is not limited to just funding research and analysis, but “educating stakeholders and policymakers, building greater awareness in the general public, and mobilizing critical constituencies for action.” ⁴⁵ This new commitment by Brest and the Hewlett board added $100 million per year to the Environment Program, essentially doubling the investment in that program and making it the highest-funded. ²¹

In 2012, another former dean of Stanford Law School, Larry Kramer, became Hewlett Foundation president. Kramer had been a constitutional law professor who claimed not to be an “originalist,” and clerked early in his career for left-wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. Reportedly holding his predecessor in high regard, Kramer believed Hewlett had been working on the right issues and largely continued the foundation’s embrace of strategic philanthropy. Kramer also pushed for more transparency and oversaw the development of “a comprehensive set of policies and practices based on the presumption that information created by or about the Foundation should be freely available” and launched a blog for staff to offer insights into their decision-making. ⁴⁶

Convinced that “all of our work is dependent on government functioning,” Kramer launched a new program area in 2014 to address partisanship and gridlock in the U.S. Congress. ⁴⁷ The new Madison Initiative was stated to be nonpartisan, and would “seek to help create the conditions in which Congress can craft solutions to our country’s most pressing challenges.” ⁴⁸ But like the foundation’s earlier claims to support collaboration and diversity of opinion, the actual beneficiaries of the Madison Initiative’s largess have belied Hewlett’s assertion of objectivity.

While the initiative has funded a few conservative and free-market organizations, the majority of grantees are very partisan in that they seek to increase the role of government in providing solutions to the nation’s problems. Many are overtly left-of-center like Brennan Center for Justice, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Brookings Institution, National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) Education Fund, and the Center for American Progress. ⁴⁹

Other grantees have appeared to be less partisan and have espoused goals like “action-oriented civics education,” “affecting change,” “empowering a new generation,” “reinvigorating a culture of voting,” and “strengthening democracy.” ^{50 51}

Grantmaking Activities

Education

In 2022, Hewlett devoted $42 million to education grants. Part of this funding went to promote what it calls “Deeper Learning,” ⁵² an effort “to align K-12 schools in the U.S. to deliver and measure…a set of six interrelated competencies:  mastering rigorous academic content, learning how to think critically and solve problems, working collaboratively, communicating effectively, directing one’s own learning, and developing an academic mindset.” Hewlett’s stated intent is to “to help students compete globally and become engaged citizens at home.” ⁵³

In 2017, the foundation placed additional focus on “strengthening state policy and local implementation of California’s school accountability system” and as of September had granted roughly $3.5 million to organizations focused on that effort. ⁵⁴

Between 2010 and 2015, Hewlett provided grants worth more than $455,000 to the United States Department of Education “for assessment development to measure knowledge and skills against college and career-ready standards.” ⁵⁵

According to a January 2026 study by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), out of Higher Education’s annual $772 billion “revenue base,” reportedly only 0.16 percent (or $1.2 billion per year) goes towards the humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS) from U.S.-based private foundations. In addition, the same study showed that in 2023, nearly 80 percent of private grantmaking towards HASS-based fields that year came from only 25 foundations. The top ten listed are: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (over $160.7 million), the “Foundation to Promote Open Society/Open Society Institute” (over $84.9 million), the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (over $66.2 million),  the John Templeton Foundation (over $66.5 million), the Duke Endowment (over $62.5 million), the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (over $51 million), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (over $49.7 million), the Windgate Charitable Foundation (over $48.5 million), the JPB Foundation (name changed to Freedom Together Foundation as of 2024) (over $36.6 million), and the Zell Family Foundation (over $35.2 million). ⁵⁶

Environment

The foundation states that it provides “grants to protect people and places threatened by a warming planet by addressing climate change globally, expanding clean energy, and conserving the North American West.” ⁵⁷ Hewlett focuses almost exclusively on organizations that work on government policy development because this approach “provides the greatest opportunity to reach [the Foundation’s] goals.” ⁵⁸ Hewlett’s biggest environmental beneficiary is ClimateWorks, a separate foundation created and funded by Hewlett and several other charitable organizations, and launched in 2008 with a five-year $500 million commitment from Hewlett alone. ^{21 44} As of December 2023, Hewlett provided more than $100million in additional funding to ClimateWorks. ⁹ Between 2016 and 2017, Hewlett also provided nearly $53 million to an organization with a similar mission, Energy Foundation. ^{59 60}

Both ClimateWorks and Energy Foundation support other organizations that are also focused on pushing “policy solutions” at the federal, state, and municipal levels. These solutions include increasingly stringent carbon caps, taxes, fuel economy standards, building codes, and household appliance efficiency standards, as well as subsidies for wind, geothermal, solar, biomass, biofuels, electricity, and hydrogen. ^{61 62 19 20}

Hewlett also granted nearly $6 million to the Center for Popular Democracy, a strong supporter of the Green New Deal, as well as other left-wing policy proposals like government provided health care and projects to “dismantle” the criminal justice system. ⁶³

Hewlett also provides tens of millions of dollars in direct grants to many other progressive foundations including Sierra Club, Earth Island Institute, Water Foundation, Earthjustice, Greenfaith, Earth Day Network, and Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport, to name just a few. ⁶⁴

Global Development and Population

Through this program, Hewlett grants over $200 million a year “to expand women’s reproductive and economic choices, amplify citizen participation, and improve policymaking through evidence.” Roughly 10% of this budget is devoted to organizations whose primary mission is to perform abortions or advocate for abortion rights. Many of the additional beneficiaries under this program include abortion advocacy among other areas of focus. From 2022 to 2023, Hewlett gave Planned Parenthood and its affiliates over $2.5 million for “general operating support” ⁶⁵ and granted nearly $17 million more to other organizations focused on abortion rights including Population Action International ($2,300,000), Center for Reproductive Rights Africa Regional Office ($800,000), Marie Stopes International-US ($1,800,000), American Civil Liberties Union‘s Reproductive Freedom Project ($900,000), FemHealth USA ($1,000,000), Funders for Reproductive Equity ($100,000), IPAS ($5,100,000), Funders Network on Population Reproductive Health and Rights ($1,400,000), National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health ($600,000), Guttmacher Institute ($2,000,000) and National Abortion Federation ($800,000) ⁹

Performing Arts

In 2016 and 2017, Hewlett Foundation granted approximately $40 million each year to a wide variety of performing arts organizations, particularly in the San Francisco Bay area. As in the past, beneficiaries included traditional theater and classical music and dance, like Shakespeare San Francisco, Carmel Bach Festival, and Peninsula Ballet Theatre. Continuing a more recent funding trend, Hewlett also supported more progressive and avant-garde organizations, like Youth Speaks, whose guiding principle of “liberatory pedagogy” encourages youth to express themselves in “their own vernacular” ⁶⁶ and “aims to deconstruct dominant narratives in hopes of achieving a more inclusive learning experience.” ⁶⁷ The organization’s programs include Teen Poetry Slam, Under-21 Open Mics, and Queeriosity, described as “a safe space for queer youth who are reshaping the contours of our conversations about sexuality, identity, and community.” ^{68 69 70}

Economics

As of May 2013, Hewlett Foundation granted nearly $1.5 million to American Compass, a self-proclaimed conservative think tank which considers itself part of the “conservative labor movement.” Much of this grant funding was related to the development of “alternatives to neoliberalism.” This funding was part of the Hewlett foundation’s larger campaign to replace “principles of free enterprise, limited government [and] individual freedom.” ⁷¹

According to the Hewlett Foundation’s 2020 grantmaking strategy for the foundation’s Economy and Society Program, this campaign is built on the presumption that free-market capitalism “has outlived whatever usefulness it might once have had” and today “causes more problem than it solves.” According to the Foundation’s grantmaking strategy, capitalism offers “no credible solutions for society’s biggest challenges.” ⁶³

Racial Justice

From 2020 to 2023, the Hewlett Foundation granted $1,675,000 to the Action Center on Race and Economy Institute, a left-leaning economic policy organization that provides “anti-corporate analysis with an explicitly racial lens.” ⁶³

The Hewlett Foundation also called the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College that rejected the use of race-based discrimination in college admissions “bad for the country” and supported “race-conscious policies” in order to “build an inclusive nation.” ⁷² Shortly after the Supreme Court decision in October 2023, Hewlett announced the formation of its Racial Justice Advisory Council ⁷³ to advance the Foundation’s Racial Justice Strategy, a ten-year initiative designed to combat systemic racism. ⁷⁴

U.S Democracy

The Hewlett Foundation is listed as one of several left-of-center organizations that has donated roughly $2 million in grants to the One America Movement, a collection of religious organizations that lists the After Party as one of its partners. The After Party is a religious program started by Dukes Divinity School professor Curtis Chang, New York Times columnist David French and Christianity Today editor in chief Russell Moore. The program’s curriculum claims to be a space where pastors and other groups can reframe, “Christian political identity from today’s divisive partisan options.” ^{75 76} Other organizations listed include the Tides Foundation, the Catena Foundation, and the John Pritzker Family Fund. ⁷⁵

According to Inside Philanthropy, between 2014 and 2018, the Hewlett Foundation contributed roughly $96.9 million in grants towards U.S Democracy-related causes and organizations. In addition, in 2014 the organization launched their Madison Initiative, intended to “help create the conditions in which Congress can craft solutions to our country’s most pressing challenges” ⁴⁸ and between 2014 and 2020 the program claimed to contribute roughly $150 million towards programs intended to uphold “U.S. democracy, strengthen Congress as an institution and improve campaign finance and election processes to curb polarization.” ⁷⁷ By 2020, the Madison Initiative was replaced with Hewlett’s U.S Democracy program. ⁷⁷

According to its director Ali Noorani, The U.S Democracy program comprises of two strategies: the first being Trustworthy Elections, which he claims is meant to, “ensure officials execute elections so voters feel they are trustworthy, so they can take that experience and extrapolate to their perception of elections writ large.” ⁷⁷ The second strategy, National Governing Institutions, would be used to fund, “organizations that strengthen the machinery of government with the aim of promoting trust in government and democracy by improving citizen experiences with congressional constituent services.” ⁷⁷

Funding Initiatives

The Hewlett Foundation typically makes grants through its various programs and “initiatives,” including Cyber, Education, Effective Philanthropy, Environment, Global Development and Population, the Madison Initiative, Performing Arts, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Special Projects. ⁷⁸

Environment

Hewlett’s Environment initiative targets left- and right-of-center nonprofits focusing on environmental issues, including advocacy for carbon taxes.

Madison Initiative

Madison Initiative grants are generally geared at civic participation and activist organizations.

In 2018, the Hewlett Foundation gave grants to the following groups and their projects:

New Venture Fund

Total: $7,417,000

• $1,500,000 – for support of the Vision First Project.
• $1,550,000 – for the Moving Beyond Oil Project.
• $100,000 – for the Colorado River Sustainability Campaign.
• $510,000 – for the Salmon State Project.
• $400,000 – for Climate Interactive’s Enroads Project.
• $600,000 – for Climate and Clean Energy State Equity Fund.
• $100,000 – for the Alaska Heritage Campaign.
• $500,000 – for the 2020 Climate Education Fund.
• $500,000 – for the Fund for A Safer Future.
• $500,000 – for the Safety Net Defense Fund.
• $50,000 – for support of the organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion capacity of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
• $767,000 – for the OER Program at (SPARC).
• $40,000 – for the Funders Collaborative for Innovative Measurement.
• $300,000 – for the Collaborative for Student Success.

Contributions Approved for Future Payment (Total: $2,183,000)

• $383,000 – for the OER Program at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
• $1,500,000 – for the Center for Applied Environmental Law and Policy.
• $300,000 – for support of the Collaborative for Student Success.

Niskanen Center

Total: $500,000

• $400,000 – For General Operating Support.
• $100,000 – For Climate Policy and Litigation Program

Windward Fund

Total: $200,000

• For the Water Funder Initiative

Hopewell Fund

Total: $50,000

• For Support of the Resources For Abortion Delivery’s Business Sustainability Project.

Controversies

Fake News

As of March 2018, the Hewlett Foundation has announced it plans to spend $10 million over the next two years to combat what it considers “fake news.” ⁷⁹ The left-of-center organization claims that it will support research efforts that will study how disinformation spreads, the impact of elevating high-quality content, and how to “accommodate free speech and privacy while addressing online propaganda.” ⁷⁹ However, Hewlett claims to want to “investigate the networks that disseminate the news” but is also interested in a regulatory approach after supporting this research. ⁷⁹

Relatedly, in September 2023, the Hewlett Foundation announced it was joining a coalition of 22 donors to launch the Press Forward initiative, creating a half a billion-dollar fund within the next five years to support local journalism. ⁸⁰

Voter Registration

In November 2019, the Hewlett Foundation announced plans to spend $300,000 over the next year in support of the Voter Registration Project (VRP), a voter mobilization group which targets voter groups likely to lean left-of-center. The organization claims to be nonpartisan, but is run by individuals with long standing connections to left-of-center nonprofits. ⁸¹

Leadership

Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Board Chairman

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign policy think tank founded in 1910 by Andrew Carnegie. Cuellar was a justice of the Supreme Court of California for seven years, is a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, and was a faculty member at Stanford University. At Stanford, Cuellar directed the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and was the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law. Additionally, Cuellar is a member of the Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s governing body. Cuellar also worked in the U.S. Department of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton and in the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Barack Obama and co-chaired the Immigration Working Group for the Obama-Biden Transition. Cuellar has been a board member of the Hewlett Foundation since 2014. ⁸²

Amber D. Miller, President

Amber D. Miller is the president of the Hewlett Foundation, serving in the role since September 2024. Receiving her B.A in astronomy and physics from the University of California Berkeley, she serves as dean of the University of Souther California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and was previously the inaugural dean of science at Columbia University. She is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and a board member of the New York Academy of Sciences. ⁸³

Larry Kramer, Former President

Larry Kramer is a former constitutional law professor (University of Chicago, University of Michigan and New York University) and dean of Stanford Law School who clerked early in his career for left-wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. ⁸⁴ Kramer believes that democracy in the U.S. is in “serious trouble” and that the problems of the world “require a seriousness of purpose and a willingness to take action that the world’s current, feckless leadership is apparently unable to muster.” Reflecting on his mission at Hewlett for an article in the Stanford Lawyer, Kramer told his interviewer, “By retirement I want to have prevented global warming and saved democratic government.” ⁸⁵

Kramer announced in July 2023 that he would step down at the end of 2023 as president after running the Hewlett Foundation over ten years to become the president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. As of December 2023, a replacement for Kramer had not been named. ⁸⁶

In December 2023, the Hewlett Foundation announced that Elizabeth Peters, the foundation’s general counsel and corporate secretary, would serve as interim president beginning in January 2024 until a new president was named.²⁴