Steve and Connie Ballmer

SOURCE OF WEALTH: Microsoft

FUNDING AREAS: Children & Families, Mental Health, Poverty, Education, Government Transparency

OVERVIEW: Through the Ballmer Group, Steve and Connie Ballmer’s grantmaking prioritizes improving economic mobility for children and families in the United States, with special attention to the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles County and greater Detroit.

BACKGROUND: Ballmer was born in Detroit and grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan, an affluent community north of Detroit. He attended Harvard University, where he earned a degree in economics and mathematics. He attended graduate school at Stanford, but dropped out to work for Microsoft after meeting Bill Gates. Ballmer eventually succeeded Bill Gates as the CEO of Microsoft, running the company from 2000 until February 2014. In August 2014, he purchased the LA Clippers basketball team for $2 billion.

Connie Snyder Ballmer attended the University of Oregon and graduated in 1984 with a B.S. in journalism. She married Steve in 1990. She has a long history of working in the nonprofit world and addressing the needs of children and families.

CHILDREN & YOUTH: Through the Ballmer Group, Steve and Connie Ballmer engage in large-scale grantmaking to support “organizations and initiatives aimed at improving economic mobility for children and families in the United States.” The Ballmer Group states that it prioritizes “interventions designed for those who are disproportionately likely to remain in poverty.” It operates both nationally and regionally. Grants support anti-poverty groups in Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest, as well as national organizations. The Ballmer Group also has a presence in Detroit.

In 2016, Steve and Connie Ballmer helped establish Blue Meridian Partners with a $50 million donation. This is a collaborative effort of major funders to support disadvantaged children and youth.

Connie Ballmer knows the challenges facing families and children well. After reading stories about kids lost in Washington's foster system, she played an instrumental role in founding a regional nonprofit, Partners for Our Children, in 2007. The Ballmers underwrote the group's creation with a $10 million donation and helped fund the Child Well-Being Portal, a website that displays interactive data visualization tools about Washington state's child welfare system.  The group seeks to improve the child welfare system in Washington state through a partnership between government, academics, and the private sector.

MENTAL HEALTH: In 2021, the Ballmer Group pledged $38 million to support the expansion of Washington’s mental health infrastructure. Grants will support education and training for mental health and social work professionals throughout the state. Other priorities include the improvement and expansion of crisis response agencies and facilities and support for mental health services for low-income communities and patients of color. Early grants have gone to the University of Washington’s School of Social Work, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Behavioral Health Institute at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

EDUCATION: In November 2014, the couple  gave $50 million to the University of Oregon, Connie's alma mater. Half of the funds were slated to support a financial aid program for low-income students, with $20 million going to its anti-obesity program. That same month, the couple also gave an estimated $60 million to Harvard, Steve's alma mater, which was used  to fund 12 new computer science professorships. The Ballmers contributed $11 million to the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship partnership to fund scholarships for low- and middle-income students pursuing degrees in STEM and health care. Between 2010 and 2015, the couple also gave $35 million to the University of Washington School of Social Work. In 2022, the couple pledged more than $425 million to the University of Oregon to create an institute focused on children’s behavioral and mental health problems.

GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY: Ballmer created USAFacts, a "project to enable citizens to understand government in the U.S. by the numbers." The database reportedly cost about $10 million to build and employs researchers from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), the Penn Wharton Budget Model, and Lynchburg College.

OTHER: Ballmer donated $25 million to those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan, Los Angeles, and Seattle, including $10 million to University of Washington Medicine for vaccine development.

LOOKING FORWARD: The Ballmers’ immense wealth has almost tripled in recent years, and it is likely that they will soon rank among the top philanthropists in the U.S. The Ballmer Group is a responsive funder; expect grantmaking to follow the changing needs of its geographic areas of priority.

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