Guided by the business philosophy and values of our Founders, we invest in 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.
Long-term goals and strategies guide our grantmaking across each of our program areas and their many components. In pursuing these goals, we continually monitor and adjust our strategies to accommodate for accomplishments and changes in the field, as well as in response to changes in the economy that affect our resources at the Foundation.
The significant economic downturn has affected all sectors, impacting our grantees and their resources as well as our own. While the economy continues to present us with challenges, we remain committed to our partners and continue to look for ways that we can make the most of long-term investments to meet our strategic goals. We are continuing to work with our grantees on the challenges they face, offering flexibility in grant requirements, and, as best we can, offering operational effectiveness assistance and program related investments. But we are also taking this time to reassess our strategies in the current context and, in a few limited areas, deciding to reduce our future commitments. We announced affected program areas in June of 2009 and will continue to evaluate opportunities to focus our grantmaking activities where they can have the greatest possible impact. Our 2009 grantmaking activity is projected to to be approcimately $268 million and we anticipate our 2010 grantmaking activity to be approximately $236 million.
We are also reducing our operating costs, with savings not only in variable costs but also reductions in staffing and deferring salary adjustments. In fact, we anticipate achieving an approximate reduction of 9.7 percent in our operating expenses in 2009 over 2008 and we anticipate an additional 5 percent reduction in operating expenses in 2010 over 2009. We want to be “right sized” as we look to the future.
To read more about these adjustments review our page about Changes at the Foundation.
We remain deeply committed to our strategic goals, as well as to our grantees and the partnerships we have formed. In response, we are driving down our own operating costs, as well as taking steps to help those grantees negatively impacted by the economic downturn.
Core Grantmaking Programs:
We focus the majority of our grantmaking in three program areas:
Our Conservation and Science Program seeks to protect and restore our oceans, coasts, and atmosphere and to enable the creative pursuit of scientific research toward this goal.
The Population and Reproductive Health Program works to slow population growth in high fertility areas of the world and to enhance and protect women’s reproductive health and reproductive rights, especially for marginalized and disadvantaged girls, women, and communities.
Our Children, Families, and Communities Program seeks to ensure opportunities for all children to reach their potential.
Other Areas of Funding:
Our Local Grantmaking Program provides support to community organizations which offer important cultural and social services in local geographic areas of historical importance to the Packard family.
Our Organizational Effectiveness and Philanthropy Funds seek to strengthen the organizational effectiveness of grantee 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.
