Planting the Seeds for a New Philanthropic Tradition: The Early Influences of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 1966−77

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is one of America’s most important, wealthiest but also vastly understudied philanthropic institutions. Founded in 1966 by Hewlett-Packard Company co-founder William (Bill) Hewlett, his wife Flora, and their eldest son, Walter, the Foundation’s pioneering contributions to the respective developments of philanthropy in Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the state of California, as well as private philanthropic practice in the United States generally, have not attracted the scholarly attention they merit.

This presentation shines the spotlight on the early years of what was then still known as the W.R. Hewlett Foundation, and traces its evolution up to and including the year 1977, when the death of Flora Hewlett precipitated a change to the Foundation’s current name, and the start of the presidency of former University of California, Berkeley, chancellor Roger Heyns prompted an immediate re-examination of the Foundation’s philanthropic programs and objectives. While 1977 marked the starting point of a more concentrated pursuit of the Foundation’s mission as a “West Coast foundation with national interests,” some of the key characteristics and operating principles of the organization had already begun to take form.

Heeding current Hewlett leadership’s call for a more purposeful engagement with the philanthropic values of Bill and Flora Hewlett, this presentation examines a broad range of imprinting factors that shaped the Foundation during its first decade of operations. These included influences both internal and external to the young organization, such as the Hewlett and Packard families, the Hewlett-Packard Company, the San Francisco Foundation, and the political, economic, and social turmoil occasioned by the Vietnam War. By examining each of these factors in turn, a more clearly defined picture of the Foundation’s own beginnings, and the origins of current business-inspired approaches to philanthropy, emerges.