Enemies of Energy: Hewlett Foundation

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Enemies of Energy, a research report created for the Capital Research Center. The page for the full report is here: Enemies of Energy.

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Donor type: direct grant maker

In November 2025 the Capital Research Center’s Mike Watson profiled the grantmaking of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and provided this description of the late founders and funders: [i]

The Hewlett Foundation owes its existence to Hewlett-Packard, a major electronics (and later computer- and computer-peripherals) firm founded by William R. Hewlett and David Packard in 1939. Its founders, who by the late 1960s had proven quite successful in the electronics industry and had become wealthy, both founded major philanthropic institutions: William Hewlett’s William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and David Packard’s David and Lucile Packard Foundation.^[ii]

According to the Hewlett Foundation’s most recent publicly available IRS report, covering 2024, the fortune had grown to more than $13.8 billion in net assets and raked in more than $784 million in investment revenue just for that year. All that loot, and the loot that will continue to grow in the future, is now under the control of left-wing philanthropy bureaucrats. In 2024 alone they disgorged grants totaling more than $620 million. ^[iii]

Watson made this observation after reviewing Hewlett’s so-called “climate” donations: ^[iv]

Climate: By the foundation’s own accounting, it made $240.9 million in grants for environmentalist causes and advocacy in 2024, with focuses on climate change mitigation and western-lands conservation in the United States.

Hewlett’s “U.S. Climate Strategy” sites it comfortably within the “watermelon” environmentalist coalition. It focuses on the power of government to enforce decarbonization through central planning (under the euphemism “industrial policy”), government purchasing, and regulatory programs. And it presses for extremely aggressive policies such as the war on cars, endorsing “binding commitments for 100% clean energy or clean car and truck standards that are more ambitious than those promulgated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.” (This would be the Biden administration’s EPA, which was in power at the time of the strategy’s publication.) ^[v]

Hewlett is also one of three big donor foundations that created the Climateworks Foundation, one of the major pass-through donors to anti-energy NGOs that is profiled on this list. ^[vi]

According to Hewlett’s most recent publicly available IRS report, covering 2024, the foundation provided grants totaling nearly $48.6 million to seven of the anti-energy NGOs profiled in the previous section of this report and three of the major anti-energy pass-through donors profiled in this section.^[vii]

The anti-energy NGOs received a combined total of more than $6.6 million from Hewlett in 2024: ^[viii]

• World Resources Institute: $2.8 million
• Rocky Mountain Institute: $1.2 million
• Environmental Defense Fund: $1 million
• Earthjustice: $825,000
• Natural Resources Defense Council: $666,667
• Sierra Club Foundation: $125,000
• League of Conservataion Voters Education Fund: $60,000

The pass-through donors to anti-energy NGOs profiled in this section received a combined $41.8 million from Hewlett in 2024: ^[ix]

• Climateworks Foundation: $24.6 million
• Windward Fund: $8.9 million
• S. Energy Foundation: $8.2 million

And there’s more where that came from. A section in the 2024 IRS report listing Hewlett grants “approved for future payment” already lists an additional $50.6 million in combined grants pre-scheduled for many of these same recipients: Rocky Mountain Institute ($24.3 million), Climateworks Foundation ($12.2 million), Natural Resources Defense Council ($6.3 million), Windward Fund ($5.4 million) and the World Resources Institute ($1.4 million). ^[x]

PDF hyperlink to full report

Endnotes

[i] Watson, Michael. “The Hewlett Foundation’s mission to divide and rule the right.” Capital Research Center. November 20, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-hewlett-foundations-mission-to-divide-and-rule-the-right/

[ii] Watson, Michael. “The Hewlett Foundation’s mission to divide and rule the right.” Capital Research Center. November 20, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-hewlett-foundations-mission-to-divide-and-rule-the-right/

[iii] William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (EIN: 94-1655673). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941655673/202523189349102727/full

[iv] Watson, Michael. “The Hewlett Foundation’s mission to divide and rule the right.” Capital Research Center. November 20, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-hewlett-foundations-mission-to-divide-and-rule-the-right/

[v] Watson, Michael. “The Hewlett Foundation’s mission to divide and rule the right.” Capital Research Center. November 20, 2025. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-hewlett-foundations-mission-to-divide-and-rule-the-right/

[vi] History. ClimateWorks Foundation. Accessed April 21, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20150309034613/https://www.climateworks.org/about-us/our-history/ (Previously: https://www.climateworks.org/about-us/our-history/)

David And Lucile Packard Foundation. (EIN: 94-2278431). Propublica Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed April 21, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942278431

Mcknight Foundation. (EIN: 41-0754835). Propublica Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed April 21, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/410754835

William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (EIN: 94-1655673). Propublica Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed April 21, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941655673

[vii] William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (EIN: 94-1655673). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941655673/202523189349102727/full

[viii] William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (EIN: 94-1655673). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941655673/202523189349102727/full

[ix] William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (EIN: 94-1655673). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941655673/202523189349102727/full

[x] William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (EIN: 94-1655673). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 8, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941655673/202523189349102727/full