Benificus Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Benificus Foundation is the charitable vehicle of venture capitalist John Doerr and his wife, Ann Howland Doerr. The foundation’s main areas of interest are K-12 education reform and climate change. Other funding interests include health, homelessness, hunger and global development. Northern California appears to be an area of priority.
IP TAKE: The Benificus Foundation is widely known for its support of K-12 school reform and its landmark 2022 gift for the establishment of Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability.
Unfortunately, Benificus is not accessible or approachable. It prefers a proactive grantmaking approach and maintains a low profile. It also does not accept unsolicited proposals. It will be difficult to gain its attention without a personal connection to John and Ann Howland Doerr. The foundation’s address and phone, as well as John Doerr’s personal pages, are listed below.
PROFILE: The Benificus Foundation was established in 1997 by John Doerr and his wife, Ann Howland Doerr, signatories of the Giving Pledge. John Doerr studied electrical engineering at Rice University and went on to earn an MBA form Harvard. He was employed for many years at Intel, leaving in 1980 to join the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which is known for having provided early-stage funding to technology companies including Amazon, Google, Compaq, Netscape and drugstore.com, to name a few. With a nod to his long and remarkably successful career in venture capital, Doerr conducts what he describes as “venture philanthropy”—giving millions each year to high-potential but often risky projects in the foundation’s key areas of interest, which include K-12 school reform and climate change. Doerr is the founder of the NewSchools Venture Fund, and he has authored two books: Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs and Speed and Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now. Ann Howland Doerr, who also graduated from Rice University, worked in electrical engineering for many years. She chairs Khan Academy, an education nonprofit, and serves on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund. Ann Doerr is the current president of the Benificus Foundation, which maintains about $400 million in assets and makes an average of about $15 million in grants a year. The Benificus Foundation does not maintain a website, limiting information about its specific funding goals and practices.
Grants for K-12 Education
K-12 education has been the Benificus Foundation’s largest giving area since the Foundation’s inception. John Doerr founded the NewSchools Venture Fund, which aims to “transform public education by supporting education entrepreneurs and connecting their work to systems change.” Ann Howland Doerr, meanwhile, serves as chair of the board of directors of Kahn Academy, an education nonprofit that provides online tools to enhance and improve student learning in multiple disciplines at the K-12 level. Both the NewSchools Venture Fund and Khan Academy receive millions annually from Benificus. Other K-12 education grantees include FIRST STEM Education, San Francisco’s Cristo Rey Academy, Oakland’s Aspire Public Schools, Code for America Labs and the Seed Foundation, which runs charter schools in Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
Grants for Higher Education
The Benificus Foundation does not name specific goals for its high education giving. The Doerrs have mainly supported their mutual alma mater, Rice University, where they bankrolled the Doerr Institute for New Leaders, and provide ongoing support to STEM and business programs.
Overlapping with their giving for climate change and clean energy is the Doerrs’ $1.1 billion gift to Stanford University for the establishment of the Doerr School of Sustainability, which will serve as an academic hub for the development of “deep knowledge and high-impact solutions to pressing planetary challenges.” Other recent grantees higher education grantees include the University of California San Francisco, the National Hispanic University in San Jose and Santa Clara University.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
The Doerrs’ 2022 gift of $1.1 billion to Stanford University for the Doerr School of Sustainability is a philanthropic landmark in both sustainability and higher education funding. It is the second largest gift ever to an institution of higher education, according to media coverage of the project. The school brings together faculty and other experts from the areas of “climate change, Earth and planetary sciences, energy technology, sustainable cities, the natural environment, food and water security, human society and behavior, and human health and the environment” for both interdisciplinary academic programs and a sustainability accelerator, which aims to “support interdisciplinary policy design and engagement with external stakeholders.” The Stanford gift is only the latest in a long list of Benificus’s climate change grantees, which includes the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Aspen Valley Land Trust, Energy Foundation China and Conservation International.
Separately, John Doerr has developed a global climate change advocacy and education initiative, Speed and Scale, which shares the title of his 2021 book. The project’s mission is to “move leaders to act—with speed and scale.” The initiative’s action guide outlines steps that individuals, employers, organizations and governments can do to move steadily toward the goal of “net zero by 2050.”
Grants for Housing, Homelessness and Food Systems
The Benificus Foundation’s grnatmaking for housing, homelessness and food systems appears to prioritize the Doerrs’ home state of California. In recent years, the foundation has provided ongoing support to San Jose’s Second Harvest Food Bank, Raphael House of San Francisco, San Francisco’s Homeless Prenatal Program and St. Anthony’s, another San Francisco organization that provides essential services to individuals and families in need.
Grants for Public Health
The Doerrs, through their foundation, have provided ongoing support to a select few health organizations. Grantees include Palo Alto’s Avenidas Senior Services, Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and SIRUM, an organization that collects and redistributes unused medications to those who need and may not be able to afford them.
Grants for Global Development and Global Health
Global development and health are smaller areas of giving for the Benificus Foundation, but several organizations have received steady support over the past years. Grantees include the World Central Kitchen, the International Medical Corps and the ONE Campaign, which fights global poverty and hunger.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
Other organizations that have received regular support from the Benificus Foundation include the Barak Obama Foundation, the Computer History Museum and the Museum of Language Arts.
Important Grant Details:
The Benificus Foundation’s grants range anywhere from $5,000 to $7 million.
The foundation’s grantees tend to be large, well-established organizations.
Benificus tends to fund the same organizations year after year, with a strong preference for projects with which the Doerrs maintain involvement and those serving communities in the San Francisco area.
For additional information about past grantmaking, see Benificus’s recent tax filings.
The Benificus Foundation does not maintain a website and does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding. Contact information is provided below.
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CONTACT:
Benificus Foundation
751 Laurel Street, No. 717
San Carlos, CA 94070
(650) 384-0240
LINKS:
