Heather Templeton Dill was a high school history teacher before she went into the family business, taking on her current role as president of the John Templeton Foundation in 2015. Previously, she had served on the organization’s board and had worked with her father and former foundation president, the late Jack Templeton; Dill is the granddaughter of the founder, the late John Templeton.
The Templeton Foundation is a major philanthropic funder of basic science — including usual suspects like physics, astronomy and quantum mechanics — as well as areas like “character virtue development” and “individual freedom and free markets.” That would be a unique mix on its own, but the foundation is also known for science funding built largely upon its mission to untangle the mysteries of the universe — what it calls “Big Questions” — including better comprehending spiritual or religious aspects of the human condition. It’s also known for the annual Templeton Prize, which has gone to physicists, cosmologists, philosophers, priests and rabbis. Past winners include Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and Jane Goodall.
What comes through when you look at its website is that the Templeton Foundation is driven as much by sheer wonder and awe of the universe as other science funders are driven by a desire to find new subatomic particles, or cure diseases, or address other basic human needs. As a result, Templeton is a major backer of underfunded fields such as math, physics, philosophy and theology, and of work that happens at the intersections of such disciplines. The foundation’s interest in religion and its support for faith-based groups and conservative causes have also drawn backlash — including some prominent academics who have spoken out against the funder.
Templeton remains a fascinating foundation, and one not quite like any other. For a great overview, please see our Funder Spotlight. Also, definitely peruse the foundation’s rich and interesting website, particularly its 2019–2023 Strategic Priorities statement, which talks about the decision to invest a substantial $325 million in its signature theme: Science & the Big Questions, which they describe this way:
“We will support exploration of the nature of religious belief and practice; we will invest in basic scientific research that could shape how we think about human existence; we will encourage theological and philosophical reflection on the fruits of scientific discovery; and we will ask whether certain virtues such as gratitude, curiosity and humility contribute to human flourishing.”
I recently spoke with Heather Templeton Dill about her tenure to date as foundation president. Below are selected excerpts from our conversation, edited for clarity.
From your perspective as someone who’s been close to the foundation for some time, both as granddaughter of the founder and now as president, how do you see it having evolved over the years?
The foundation was created in 1987 and sometimes I like to tell people that, at the time, my grandfather said, “I’m only going to give away a million dollars a year.” So one of the ways that we’ve grown over time is that we’re a much larger organization than we were at inception. And most of those assets came to us when my grandfather passed away in 2008. Since inception, we calculate that we’ve given away almost $2 billion. And almost a billion of that has been during my tenure. We’ve grown in our capacity to give, and we’ve increased our team, and expanded the kinds of things that we’re funding. And I would say, while science has always been part of what we support, the basic science research has been a special emphasis for us.
I think today we’re carrying forward my grandfather’s philanthropic vision that he began writing and talking about in 1987 and codified along the way — he wrote many books that we use as guides for the kinds of things that we explore. And I think today, we are always looking for the ideas that other people are unlikely to fund that pursue some of those questions, challenging existing paradigms.
Since you mention your grandfather and his initial ideas, are there any ways that the foundation has gone into areas that he did not initially cite as a funding interest?
I don’t think so — yet. I think that will be coming. But we’re only 35 years old and a lot of the ideas that he wrote about are still relevant today. For example, the research we support in genetics or in physics and cosmology, in one way or another, he wrote about those ideas. We have just tried to tap into the researchers who are on the cutting edge. But I think that’s going to become a question we ask ourselves as science advances: What is consistent with what he would have wanted us to do?
The Templeton Foundation has announced it would ramp up funding going forward. I’m assuming that, like a lot of foundations, it’s because invested assets grew a lot more than expected. Has that funding ramp-up begun?
Yes, giving increased in 2021 and 2022. We’ve had the opportunity to make some bigger bets in the strategic areas that we outlined at the beginning of 2019. It’s really in those spaces where we have been able to do some large, multimillion-dollar projects across all our funding areas. We have supported The Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, and we renewed our support for that. We approved a large project in 2021 to the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) to fund fellows who are going to be analyzing the data coming from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. So those are some areas where we had more capacity and were able to do more in areas that we were already funding.
How do you see Templeton fitting into the ecosystem of funders of basic science and science research? What’s your niche?
Well, I think we’re similar (to other funders) in some ways. We helped to launch the Black Hole Initiative, but the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has come along and partnered with us on that. So in some ways, we are doing work that others would be interested in. When you think of basic science research, sometimes that will help us make major technological advances. Sometimes basic science research will solve major problems like disease and climate change. And then there’s this other element of basic science research where it just helps us understand how the world works, and why it is the way it is. And that’s our niche. Although, for example, we do have a portfolio in genetics, and that would maybe fit into that (technological) category that I described. But our niche is really “why is the world the way it is” and frankly, “what does that mean for who I am as a human being and how I’m supposed to live on this planet?”
Some scientists have criticized Templeton for the religious elements of its science funding. How does Templeton balance those notions?
It’s true that religion was important to my grandfather. And it’s true that we have funding areas that are dedicated to understanding the religious dimension of human experience, and where we study things like the psychology of religion, sociology, religion, and similar topics. That’s the kind of work he cared about, and that we think is important. Because whether you’re religious or not, it is a piece of human experience. When it comes to the basic science research, there are philosophical questions to be asked about science. Sometimes those might bleed into theological questions. But I think science can raise questions about what it means to be human and what I’m supposed to do on this planet, and meaning and purpose and things like that. There are instances where we would encourage a philosophical component to some of the basic science research that we support. This is true in the Black Hole Initiative. It’s true in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. But I will say that once a grant is supported and funded, the researcher is off and running. And if their research takes them down a path that we didn’t expect, or that they didn’t expect, we’re not going to intervene and say, “Whoa, that’s not what we intended.” We let the science run its course.
As a philanthropy professional, do you have colleagues or others who ask you, “why are you funding these spiritual ideas? Why not address hunger and disease and other pressing basic needs?”
I do not get those questions. But I can feel where they might come from. While we might not be solving poverty directly, or addressing some of the medical or health crises, we are contributing to overcoming those challenges, just in a different way. I’m grateful for those who support these issues, but we are contributing something else in terms of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning that I think then contributes to one’s ability to give.