The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private family foundation, endowed by the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard and his wife, that funds work across conservation, science, reproductive health, and community development. For research administrators, the Foundation is most relevant through one program in particular: the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering, a nomination-only early-career award. Almost everything else the Foundation funds is relationship- and invitation-based, not open to unsolicited applications. This guide explains what the Foundation funds, how the Fellowships program works, and how its grantmaking model compares to peer foundations CASRAI already covers.
What Is the David and Lucile Packard Foundation?
The Packard Foundation is a private, family foundation based in Los Altos, California, established by David Packard (co-founder of Hewlett-Packard) and his wife Lucile Packard. It organizes its grantmaking around three broad goals: Build Just Societies (civil society, inclusive institutions, and governance), Protect and Restore Our Natural World (climate, ocean health, and scientific innovation), and Invest in Families and Communities (children’s healthy development and community resilience). These goals are pursued through a set of named initiatives — including a Global Climate Initiative, an Ocean Initiative, and a U.S. Racial Justice Initiative, among others — rather than through a single, static list of open funding programs.
For a research office, the Foundation’s most directly relevant program is the one built specifically to fund individual scientists and engineers: the Packard Fellowships.
Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering: Eligibility and Nomination Process
The Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering is a nomination-only program that funds early-career faculty. Key mechanics, per the Foundation’s own program pages:
- Nomination, not application. Candidates must be faculty members at one of 50 invited institutions; the program does not accept self-nominated or unsolicited candidacies from outside that invited pool.
- Career stage. Nominees must be within the first three years of their first faculty appointment (the exact appointment-start window shifts slightly each award cycle, so check the current year’s guidelines before nominating).
- Eligible fields. Physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, astronomy, computer science, earth science, ocean science, and all branches of engineering.
- Excluded fields and activities. Social-science research, clinical research, research tied to large national facilities (e.g., accelerators, space stations), and applied research directly relevant to national security are explicitly out of scope.
- Award size. The Foundation selects 20 Fellows per year from the pool of nominees, each receiving $875,000 distributed over five years as flexible, largely unrestricted research funding.
- Program history. Established in 1988, the Foundation reports the program has awarded more than $500 million to over 700 scientists and engineers to date, with recipients going on to win Nobel Prizes and election to the National Academies.
Because nomination rights sit with the 50 invited institutions rather than with individual faculty, the practical first step for a research administrator is confirming whether your institution is on the current invited list and, if so, who on campus (often the research development or vice provost’s office) manages the internal nomination process. Institutions typically run their own internal limited-submission competition to select which early-career faculty to put forward.
How Packard Funding Works Generally: Invitation-Based, Not Open Applications
Outside the Fellowships program, the Packard Foundation does not operate an open, standing application process. Its own funding-opportunities page states plainly that it does not review unsolicited proposals as a matter of course, and that less than one percent of the grants it makes in a typical year originate from unsolicited proposals. At the time this guide was written, the Foundation’s funding-opportunities page listed no open requests for proposals.
In practice, this means:
- Most Packard grants go to organizations the Foundation has proactively identified and built a relationship with, consistent with its description of itself as a strategy-led funder that selects partners deliberately rather than through open competition.
- When the Foundation does run a defined, time-bound opportunity (for example, an occasional open call for statements of interest tied to a specific initiative), it publishes that separately and temporarily on its funding-opportunities page rather than maintaining a permanent, general-purpose application form.
- Organizations that are not already Packard grantees and want to be considered are generally better served building visibility and relationships within the Foundation’s specific initiative areas than by submitting a cold proposal.
This invitation-based model is common among large family and legacy foundations, but it is not universal — see the comparison section below for how it differs from some peer funders CASRAI covers.
Award Structure and Indirect Costs
Indirect cost (F&A) treatment is often the first practical question a sponsored-programs office asks about any new foundation relationship. Packard’s own published policy uses a tiered minimum indirect cost rate keyed to the grantee organization’s annual operating budget, not a single flat percentage:
- 25% minimum for grantee organizations with annual budgets under $5 million
- 20% minimum for grantee organizations with annual budgets between $5 million and $50 million
- 15% minimum for grantee organizations with annual budgets over $50 million
The Foundation states it removed its prior cap on indirect cost rates in 2019 and has continued to refine this tiered approach since. It has also been a member, since 2017, of Funders for Real Cost, Real Change — a coalition of foundations focused on ensuring project grants cover grantees’ full, real costs rather than underfunding overhead. For research offices used to negotiating a single federally negotiated indirect cost rate agreement (NICRA) with a cognizant federal agency, the key adjustment with Packard (and with foundation funders generally) is that the applicable rate is a foundation policy tied to organizational size, not a rate negotiated per-institution the way a NICRA is.
How Packard Compares to Other Foundations CASRAI Covers
Research offices juggling multiple foundation relationships often need a quick sense of which funders operate which way. Relative to other major research-funding foundations:
- Vs. the Hewlett Foundation: Both are large, invitation-heavy funders organized around broad strategic goals rather than a single open grant competition; the Fellowships program is Packard’s closest analogue to a defined, criteria-based award that a research office can actively pursue rather than simply wait to be invited into.
- Vs. the Ford Foundation: Similarly relationship-driven and strategy-led, with grantmaking concentrated in social-justice and civil-society areas rather than open, discipline-based science competitions.
- Vs. the W.M. Keck Foundation: Keck runs a defined, project-based science and engineering research grant program that institutions can apply to (via a pre-proposal/full-proposal cycle); Packard’s science funding, by contrast, runs almost entirely through the closed-pool Fellowships nomination process rather than an open project-grant competition.
- Vs. the Beckman Foundation: Beckman similarly funds individual early-career researchers in chemistry and life sciences through defined award programs open to nomination or application from eligible institutions, offering a useful point of comparison for how different foundations structure early-career science funding.
For the mechanics of federally negotiated indirect cost rates as a baseline comparison, see CASRAI’s Foundation vs. Federal Indirect Cost Rates comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an individual researcher apply directly to the Packard Foundation?
Not for the Fellowships program — nomination must come through one of the 50 invited institutions, not directly from the researcher. For the Foundation’s broader grantmaking outside the Fellowships, funding goes to organizations (typically nonprofits, universities, or NGOs) rather than to individuals, and is overwhelmingly relationship- and invitation-based rather than open to direct individual application.
Does the Packard Foundation accept unsolicited letters of inquiry or proposals?
The Foundation states it does not generally review unsolicited proposals, and that less than one percent of its grants in a typical year originate that way. Where a letter of inquiry process exists, it is usually tied to a specific, time-bound open call rather than a permanent, standing mechanism.
How many Packard Fellows are selected each year, and what is the award worth?
Twenty Fellows are selected annually, each receiving $875,000 distributed over five years as flexible research funding.
What fields does the Packard Fellowships program exclude?
Social-science research, clinical research, research associated with large national facilities such as accelerators or space stations, and applied research directly relevant to national security are explicitly excluded from eligibility.
What indirect cost rate does Packard apply to grants?
Packard uses a tiered minimum indirect cost rate based on the grantee organization’s annual operating budget: 25% for budgets under $5 million, 20% for budgets between $5 million and $50 million, and 15% for budgets over $50 million.
Is the Packard Foundation the same as Hewlett-Packard the company?
No. The Foundation is a separate, independent private philanthropy established by David and Lucile Packard; it has no ownership stake in or operational relationship to the Hewlett-Packard company (now HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise).
