The program awards grants in three areas of focus: sustaining healthy Bay Area ecosystems and conserving critical landscapes, enhancing science education and learning especially for children, and improving the quality of care provided to adults during and following hospitalization. The Program has awarded more than $172 million in grants to Bay Area organizations since the Foundation’s inception in 2000.

• Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative: A $1.8 million grant to the Foundation for California Community Colleges to develop a Centralized Clinical Placement System for nursing school students.  
• Land Conservation: A $1.2 million grant to the Marin Agricultural Land Trust for the permanent protection of 714 acres of agricultural land and open space on the eastern edge of Tomales Bay.
• Science Education and Learning: A $2.1 million grant to the Chabot Space & Science Center to help increase the participation of girls in science, technology, and engineering.

A goal of Gordon and Betty Moore in creating the Foundation was to give back to the community that has been their home for more than 70 years. The San Francisco Bay Area Program works to ensure that local grantmaking reflects their interests and priorities to benefit the local community.

The San Francisco Bay Area Program’s Land Conservation and Science and Technology Museum efforts focus on a 10-county area that includes Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma.

The Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative works in five Bay Area counties: Alameda, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. In 2007, the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative expanded to five Greater Sacramento counties: Amador, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo. 

The San Francisco Bay Area program seeks to improve the quality of life for current and future generations in the Bay Area. The Foundation takes a proactive, analytical approach to grantmaking, with an emphasis on measurable impact. We work to identify opportunities where the Foundation can bring about lasting, meaningful benefit to our local communities and the environment.

Initiatives are major grantmaking efforts that include a comprehensive strategic plan and supporting portfolio of grants designed to transform a field. Also, initiatives are time-bound and funds are allocated with the purpose of reaching a measurable result at the end of the Initiative term. In the case of the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative, the Foundation’s goal is to measurably improve nursing-related patient outcomes in Bay Area adult acute care hospitals by improving hospital practices and the effectiveness of nursing skills.

The Foundation’s focus on land conservation and science and technology museums is more opportunistic. While these grants meet the Foundation’s four filters (which ask if a project is important, makes a difference and has enduring impact, has measurable outcomes, and contributes to a portfolio effect), they can stand alone as individual grants—not as one part of an umbrella initiative—to meet their intended outcomes. Although we take a long-term view and stress measurable results for grants in these areas, we see our role more as responding to important opportunities as they arise.

From the Foundation’s inception in 2000, the San Francisco Bay Area Program has awarded more than $90 million in land protection grants. These grants have contributed to the protection of more than 25,000 at-risk acres, an area nearly the size of the city and county of San Francisco.

The San Francisco Bay Area Program prioritizes acquisition projects that are grounded on science-based regional conservation planning. Individual acquisition projects are evaluated on how well they contribute to the following criteria:

A. large-scale parcels of intact habitat and/or land that expands existing protected areas;

B. lands that help ensure adequate habitat representation throughout the Bay Area to support lasting ecological integrity and biodiversity;

The science and technology museum grants within the San Francisco Bay Area Program seek to promote science literacy among Bay Area educators, students, and the general public. The Program supports a number of San Francisco Bay Area science-rich education institutions through funding for innovative programs and exhibits that will measurably increase scientific awareness and critical inquiry. The programs have in common a strong emphasis on science education for students, including cprofessional development for teachers. To date, grantees include the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco), the Chabot Space & Science Center (Oakland), the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley), the Computer History Museum (Mountain View), The Exploratorium (San Francisco), KQED's QUEST program (San Francisco), and The Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose).

Yes. The Foundation has formed strong partnerships with communities, government entities, other nonprofit organizations, and the private sector to bring about measurable, long-lasting change in all three areas of the program. 

In the case of the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative, the Foundation is in a unique position to assemble a wide range of stakeholders—including government, business, nonprofits, and other donors—to develop broad-scale solutions to address the problems facing nursing-related care. Among its funding partners in this effort are the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, John A. Hartford Foundation, California HealthCare Foundation, and the Blue Shield of California Foundation, as well as other national foundations.