OVERVIEW: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation makes over $300 million a year in grants. Environmental causes account for the foundation’s largest giving area, which includes land and ocean conservation, biodiversity initiatives, climate change and clean energy. Other areas of interest include global development, health, women and girls and early childhood education.
IP TAKE: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a major supporter of environmental causes in the U.S. and around the world, with a significant portion of recent funding going to ocean research and sustainable fishing initiatives. In the U.S., the foundation has emphasized child development, reproductive health and racial justice and equity. A significant portion of its U.S. grantmaking goes to organizations and institutions on the West Coast.
While many of the Packard Foundation’s grantees are large, well-known national and global nonprofits and NGOs, smaller organizations working in the foundation’s specific areas of interest have had some success in receiving support. Potential grantees should read about the foundation’s specific priorities on its individual program pages prior to submitting short descriptions of projects via its grant inquiry form or an email to an appropriate program officer.
The Packard Foundation is known for being accessible and responsive. It likes to build relationships, offering multi-year grants. Packard works hard to support its grantees in bringing their goals to fruition. A collaborative grantmaker, Packard provides support in a variety of ways. However, if you’d like to secure general operating, clarify your story. For capital funding, plan to share a solid fundraising plan. Packard lacks the bureaucracy of larger grantmakers despite its size.
PROFILE: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation was established in 1964 and is based in Los Altos, California. David Packard, who died in 1996, was the co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard technology company and a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense. Lucile, who passed 1987, was instrumental in the management of Hewlett-Packard in its earliest years and oversaw much of the family’s philanthropy. During their lives, the Packards were instrumental in the establishment of Palo Alto’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the Monterey Bay Aquarium and affiliated Research Institute, all three of which continue to receive support from the foundation.
Today, the Packard Foundation aims to “support leaders and institutions working on issues our founders cared about most.” Making over $300 million in grants each year, Packard is a signatory of the Climate Funders Justice Pledge and a major environmental funder, with grants for land and ocean conservation, climate change, sustainable agriculture and environmental research comprising its largest area of funding. Other interests include health, women and girls, early childhood, racial justice and issues concerning the local communities of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey Counties in California.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Sustainable Agriculture
The Packard Foundation conducts funding for environmental conservation through its Land and Agriculture Livelihoods and Conservation initiatives. The Land program focuses on conservation of “the North American West’s greatest natural treasures and last remaining wilderness” and prioritizes collaborative conservation efforts and the voices of marginalized peoples. In the early 2000s, the foundation gave over $20 million to various organizations involved in the advancement of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, which was enacted in Canada in 2016 and will protect 85% of the forest, as well as ecosystems, habitats and heritage sites. A more recent area of focus has been the state of California, where the foundation has given to the California Council of Land Trusts, the Big Sur Land Trust, California Environmental Associates and the Peninsula Open Space Trust, which was awarded $1 million in 2019 for its land acquisition and conservation programs in the counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo.
The Packard Foundation also funds conservation via its Agriculture Livelihoods and Conservation program, which supports the involvement of farmers and other small business owners who depend on natural resources in efforts to conserve and protect lands and ecosystems from destructive use and development. The program currently focuses on women, indigenous communities and youth in vulnerable areas of Ethiopia and Indonesia. Recent funding has prioritized smallholder farms in Ethiopia and Indonesia; the foundation has committed $3 million a year to grantmaking in each country through 2024. The Ethiopian subprogram has supported the U.S.-based organization Digital Green, which used funding to advance sustainable agricultural practices in the Oromia area. Another Ethiopian grantee, the Siiqqee Women’s Development Association aims to improve women’s agricultural livelihoods in Buno Bedele and Illubabor. In Ethiopia, the Movement for Ecological Learning and Community Action has received ongoing support for its work introducing sustainable methods of farming to local communities and developing policy for the preservation of natural resources and ecosystems.
Packard’s Indonesian funding program maintains similar goals, prioritizing small farms that are in or near Indonesia’s endangered forests. One recent grant went to Yayasan Institute Sumber Daya Dunia, which used funding to evaluate and support sustainable land use in two target districts. Another grantee, the Forest Institute, received funding for an assessment of “strategies and activities related to sustainable palm oil work in Indonesia.” In Indonesia, Packard has also funded Jakarta’s Perkumpulan Hutan Itu, an organization that works collaboratively with NGOs and communities to protect endangered forests.
The Packard Foundation earmarks funds for research on sustainable agriculture on a global level, including research on conservation interventions, dominant global trends and effective policy development. Grantees include the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum, the Conservation International Foundation and Indonesia’s Yayasan KOPERNIK, which conducts research on smallholder farm needs.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
Packard’s Climate program represents one of its largest areas of grantmaking, with a significant portion of funding channeled through ClimateWorks Foundation and the Stichting European Energy Foundation. Packard’s climate change goals include the development of low-carbon transportation, increased efficiency and emissions reductions across all sectors and the reduction of coal reliance through the adoption of clean power alternatives. In addition to the ClimateWorks Foundation, which receives millions of dollars in grants each year, Packard has supported Solutions for Our Climate, which works to mitigate biomass energy risks in South Korea, and the U.S.-based Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal support to scientists and others who are subject to political attacks.
Grants for Marine and Freshwater Conservation
Ocean conservation and science are longstanding commitments of the Packard Foundation. Globally, the foundation supports broad efforts towards the protection of marine biodiversity and seafood industry sustainability. The foundation also works with organizations in Japan, Indonesia, China, Chile, Mexico and the U.S. on ocean governance initiatives. Global grantees include the Ocean Conservancy, which has received ongoing general operating support, and the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Seattle. In Japan, Packard has funded ocean policy reform initiatives at G.R. Japan K.K. U.S. grantees working internationally to promote sustainable fishing practices include the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation, which focuses on the fishing industry in Mexico, and Ocean Outcomes, which works with organizations in China to promote fishing reform. The Packard Foundation has also supported ocean research at the University of British Columbia, the University of California San Diego and the University of California Berkeley.
Grants for Science Research
Packard’s science funding program “supports creative, timely research to spark fresh thinking and produce effective, innovative solutions.” Recent grants have prioritized research in the earth sciences and the communication of important findings to the public, overlapping considerably with the foundation’s work in environmental and marine conservation. Focus areas include ecosystems and fishing practices of the U.S. West Coast, the effect of climate change on the world’s oceans and the potential uses of bioenergy in greenhouse gas reduction. In 2019, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute was granted $47 million for its research and operations, and Science is US was given $4 million in 2022. Other grantees include the Oregon Environmental Council, Goodwin Simon Strategic Research and the University of Washington, which received funding for studies of ecosystems of the Galapagos Islands.
The Packard Foundation also supports science research through its Fellowships for Science and Engineering subprogram. This program supports 20 promising early-career faculty at 50 U.S. universities each year. Candidates from the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, astronomy, computer science, earth science, ocean science and engineering must be nominated by their university presidents and generally receive $875,000 in research grants over a five-year period. The program prioritizes the work of scientists and engineers who embrace new approaches to problem solving and whose work is deemed to have the potential to make a large impact in its discipline.
Grants for Global Health
Global health grantmaking stems from Packard’s Reproductive Health program, which supports direct services, research and advocacy “to advance quality sexual and reproductive health information, services and rights.” The program’s current geographic areas of focus include the U.S., Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Past global grantees include the International Planned Parenthood Federation of Africa, the Ethiopian Public Health Association and CorStone, which received $1.5 million to evaluate and expand its teen health education program in the Indian state of Bihar.
Grants for Public Health
The Packard Foundation’s Children Families and Communities funding program names Children’s Health as an area of priority. This subprogram works exclusively in the U.S. to improve access to quality care for children between the ages of one and five. Areas of interest include Medicare expansion, increasing access to children’s health insurance programs, parent support programs, free and low-cost screening services and policy development for improved healthcare for all children. In Oregon, the foundation has given to the Campbell Institute’s collaboration with Oregon’s Pediatric Improvement Partnership to provide health services to underserved children, and in Washington, GMMB, Inc. received a grant to continue its Insuring America’s Children project. Other children’s health grantees include the Center for Law and Social Policy, Children Now and Young Invincibles, which used funding to build defense for the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and increased access to affordable health coverage for families with young children. In 2022, the foundation gave $100 million to the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health to improve the obstetric and neonatal facilities at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.
Grants for Women and Girls
The Packard Foundation makes grants for women’s and girls’ causes via its Reproductive Health and Agriculture, Livelihoods and Conservation initiatives. The U.S. sub-initiative of the reproductive health program prioritizes the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, where access to sexuality education, contraception and abortion procedures are limited. Recent grantees include Teen Health Mississippi, the Women’s Foundation of Mississippi, sexuality education programs of the Children’s Coalition for Northeast Louisiana, the Abortion Care Network and Exhale, an abortion support talk line. Packard has also given to organizations operating in other parts of the U.S., including the National Institute for Reproductive Health, FemHealth USA, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Hopewell Fund.
The foundation supports a small number of international women’s organizations that promote economic equity, reproductive rights and women’s roles as leaders in movements for conservation and sustainability. Past grantees include the Asian University for Women, the International Women’s Health Coalition, the Global Fund for Women, Fond pour les Femmes Congolaises, and Perkumpulan Bentara Papua, an organization that empowers indigenous women in movements to conserve the Arfak Mountains and South Sarong areas of West Papua, Indonesia.
Grants for Early Childhood Education
Early childhood education is a main priority of Packard’s Children Families and Communities initiative, which maintains an early learning subprogram. Packard’s early learning grants support the development of policy for increased access to quality early childhood programs, teacher education and professional development, parent support initiatives and research on early childhood best practices. The initiative runs a signature program, Starting Smart and Strong, which supports programs that encourage parents, teachers and other stakeholders to “prepare children to be healthy and ready for school with self-confidence and a love of learning.” Starting Smart and Strong programs have been successfully implemented in collaboration with public school districts in Oakland, San Jose and Fresno, California, and the foundation plans to support program expansion through 2024. Other early childhood grantees include the Alaska Children’s Trust, the National Center for Infants Toddlers and Families’ Zero to Three program, the Pennsylvania Partnership for Children and the Every Child Matters Education Fund.
Grants for Racial Justice and Equity
In 2020, the Packard Foundation committed to support racial justice causes in the U.S. with $100 million in grants over the next five years. The new initiative’s first grant of $20 million was awarded to the Solidaire Network’s Black Liberation Pooled fund to “provide immediate resources to Black-led social change organizations, including leaders and organizers within the Movement for Black Lives.”
Other Grantmaking:
The Packard Foundation runs local grantmaking programs for San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties in California. Grantmaking aims to “create communities where everyone has access to the resources and services they need to be strong, resilient, and have opportunities to explore, grow and thrive.” Areas of interest include arts and arts education, the environment, civic engagement, housing, food banks and basic needs and youth and afterschool programs. Recent grantees include the Museum of Art and History at the McPherson Center, the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara county and the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula.
The Packard Foundation also supports organizations working in its areas of interest via its Organizational Effectiveness program that assembles groups of philanthropic leaders for workshops that strengthen skills, build capacity and develop networks within the philanthropic community. Past grantees and participants include Hispanics in Philanthropy, Youth Community Service Inc., Young Invincibles, the Council for a Strong America and Funding Fish.
Important Grant Details:
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation makes over $300 million a year in grants ranging from $10,000 to several millions of dollars. The foundation’s average grant size is about $100,000. This funder supports a surprising range of organizations ranging from well-recognized global entities to local grassroots groups working in areas of interest. The foundation maintains a searchable database of its past grantees that dates back to 2015. Its website also features a grantee stories page.
The Packard Foundation encourages grantseekers whose work aligns with its goals to complete its grant inquiry form or send a brief project description to the appropriate program officer. The foundation will not review unsolicited full proposals. About 15% of the Packard Foundation’s annual grantmaking is awarded to new grantees. For additional information see the foundation’s FAQ and grantseekers pages. General inquiries may be made via the foundation’s contact page.
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