The first year, $225,000 (equivalent to $2.2 million today) went to organizations Bill and Flora loved. Their passions are still reflected in what the foundation supports today.

A grant to the League of Women Voters Education Fund reflected an early, durable belief that a healthy democracy depends on informed, engaged citizens. That conviction still runs through the foundation’s work today.

The Hewletts believed in healthy institutions as a vehicle for progress, including institutions of philanthropy. To bring rigor into the foundation, they hired John May, who’d built the San Francisco Foundation into a model of civic philanthropy, as executive director.

By 1975, the foundation’s grantmaking reached $5.79 million across 29 organizations, from the California Academy of Sciences to United Way of Santa Clara County — nearly all California-based, reflecting a belief in strong communities.

A $175,000 matching grant helped Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) grow sixfold in six years. By 1985, secure state and corporate funding let Hewlett wind down support, leaving one of the country’s largest STEM programs standing strong.

The foundation’s first grants to the San Francisco Symphony and KQED public broadcasting reflected Bill and Flora’s own loves. In 1980, that became a program with staff: dedicated, ongoing support for orchestras, theaters, and community arts groups across the Bay Area.

Hewlett joined the Bush Foundation of St. Paul, Minnesota in a $10 million challenge-grant program to support private Historically Black Colleges and Universities — including Spelman College, Tuskegee Institute, and Paine College — in completing their capital campaigns.

A first general operating grant to U.K.-based Marie Stopes International in 1987 helped expand reproductive health services internationally. Now MSI Reproductive Choices, it serves 100,000 women and girls daily across 36 countries.

Recognizing that rivers, wildlife, and public lands don't follow state lines, Hewlett's Environment Program grew beyond California to support communities in conserving the American West at large. That interconnected footprint still shapes the foundation’s conservation work today.

By 1994, Hewlett had supported reproductive health work for decades. In Cairo, 179 countries agreed population policy should center women’s rights and health over demographic targets, a shift already underway at Hewlett and now embraced worldwide.

After Mexico passed a national freedom-of-information law in 2002, Hewlett’s Mexico office began funding transparency work, an early bet that access to government information strengthens civic life. This effort helped shape norms that spread to other countries through groups like the International Budget Partnership and the eventual creation of the Open Government Partnership.

Port and freight pollution was tied to about 2,400 premature deaths a year in California. In 2006, Hewlett grantees helped win a $2 billion Clean Air Action Plan for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. By 2023, diesel soot at Long Beach was down 92% from 2005.

Hewlett partnered with Canada's International Development Research Centre to launch the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) in 2008 to strengthen independent policy research organizations in Latin America, South Asia, and Africa, helping build the field of evidence-informed policymaking. TTI became a $190 million multi-donor partnership with the Gates Foundation and government donors from the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K.

Power to Decide (originally The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy), supported by Hewlett, works with entertainment media to integrate reproductive health information into storytelling. When MTV premiered "16 and Pregnant" and “Teen Mom” in 2009, the shows brought viewers evidence-based information and helped accelerate the decline in the U.S. teen birth rate.

Drawing on grantee and community feedback, the Performing Arts Program broadened its portfolio to better reflect the communities and cultures that call the Bay Area home.

In 2014, Hewlett launched the Madison Initiative to help Congress deliberate and compromise across ideological divisions. Over the next decade, the effort expanded to ensure election integrity, laying the groundwork for today’s U.S. Democracy Program.

Research shows students at Deeper Learning Network high schools, supported by Hewlett's Education Program, graduated on time at a 9% higher rate than matched peers at comparison schools, and were more likely to enroll in four-year and selective colleges. Results held across income levels, English language learner status, and academic starting point.

As the U.N. set new global goals, momentum built for better, more usable data. Alongside other funders, Hewlett committed $3 million to help launch the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, uniting governments, civil society, international groups, and businesses to use data to tackle the world’s toughest challenges.

Hewlett invested in organizations elevating students' perspectives and helping them have a say in decisions impacting them. A year later, when schools across the country went remote, engaging student voices was critical to helping schools identify and address challenges.

Hewlett committed $50 million over five years to launch the Economy and Society Initiative, funding economists, legal scholars, and think tanks from left, right, and center to advance new ideas about how the economy can work better for everyone.

Established in 2021 with support from leading philanthropies, the Global Methane Hub (GMH) works to accelerate reductions in methane, a powerful superpollutant responsible for nearly a third of global warming. Since its launch, GMH has provided more than $362 million in grants to over 230 organizations worldwide, advancing solutions across energy, agriculture, and waste. By the end of 2025, 161 countries had incorporated measures targeting major methane sources into their national climate commitments, surpassing GMH's 2030 target of 150 countries. Through strategic grantmaking and partnerships, GMH has also helped catalyze methane mitigation measures across more than $8.7 billion in approved development finance investments between 2023 and 2025, demonstrating the power of philanthropy to mobilize financing and accelerate climate action at scale.

When the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, Hewlett accelerated a shift that had already started, funding state and local reproductive justice organizations to better ensure people could maintain access to reproductive health.In 2023, after two decades of advocacy and evidence-building by Free the Pill — a coalition spearheaded by Hewlett grantee Ibis Reproductive Health —  the FDA approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, leading to a groundbreaking advancement in contraceptive access in the United States.

As funding cuts strained nonprofits around the world, Hewlett accelerated $50 million in payments to existing grantees and launched a technical assistance fund that reached nearly 100 grantees. The foundation launched the Future of Giving strategy to support the long-term health of the charitable sector, which has long been under-resourced, to better support nonprofits and the communities they serve.

As USAID's dismantling shook global development, Hewlett invested more than $3 million in a diversity of efforts to build a more effective, equitable path forward, including grants to the Future of Development Cooperation Coalition, the Funders’ Roundtable on the Future of Development, AidData, and the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI).