The other co-founder of HP wanted in on philanthropy, too. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation seeks to “solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world.” William R. Hewlett, co-founder of the previously mentioned HP, established the foundation in 1966 with his wife and eldest son. Mr. Hewlett’s personal mantra was to “never stifle a generous impulse.” With $7.2 billion in assets, according to the Foundation Center, the Menlo Park, Calif., foundation today operates five programs in the areas of education, environment, global development and population, performing arts, and effective philanthropy. The foundation is also a significant grantmaker; $304 million was awarded in 2012, and a median grant in 2011 amounted to $125,000, according to its website. Foundation executives say it’s important to take risks in grantmaking, along with emphasizing the need to acknowledge and learn from failures in funding philanthropic ventures.
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
