Origin:

The David & Lucile Packard Foundation was created in 1964 by David Packard (1912–1996), the co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Company, and his wife, Lucile Salter Packard (1914– 1987). Throughout their lives in business and philanthropy, the Packards sought to use private funds for the public good, giving back to a society which enabled them to prosper.

Throughout their lives together, David and Lucile dedicated themselves to philanthropic causes. After David’s death in 1996, the Foundation was named the beneficiary of a major portion of his estate.

Following in the footsteps of its founder, Packard Foundation believes that management has a responsibility to its employees, to its customers, and to the community at large and Hewlett-Packard has pioneered many innovative benefits and management concepts, such as flexible working hours, catastrophic medical coverage, and open offices.

Packard’s Mission:

Packard Foundation invests in and takes smart risks with innovative people and organizations to improve the lives of children, enable the creative pursuit of science, advance reproductive health, and conserve and restore earth’s natural systems.

At Packard they believe that foundations can uniquely effect social, cultural, and environmental change in ways that governments and other public institutions do not. Simultaneously, they are awre of the fact that foundations alone could never be expected to shoulder society’s ultimate responsibility to its citizens, they believed a foundation could complement government efforts in significant ways — combining the ingenuity and innovation of the free market with unrestricted charitable resources to meet significant needs.

Core Programs:
Packard Foundation focuses the majority of grantmaking in three program areas:

Conservation and Science Program:

It seeks to protect and restore oceans, coasts, and atmosphere and to enable the creative pursuit of scientific research towards this goal.

Population Program:

It intends to slow the rate of growth of the world’s population, to expand reproductive health options among the world’s poor, and to support reproductive rights.

Children, Families, and Communities Program:

It seeks to ensure opportunities for all children to reach their potential.

In addition to core grantmaking programs, Packard Foundation provides support in other important areas such as:

Local Area Funds:

These funds provide support to arts and community organizations which offer important cultural and social services in local geographic areas of historical importance to the Packard family.

Organizational Effectiveness and Philanthropy Funds:

These seek to strengthen the organizational effectiveness of guarantee organizations, provide program-related investments to further program goals and objectives, and improve the practice of philanthropy.

The Foundation makes Program-Related Investments to support overall program goals and objectives.