Dear Friends,
After marking the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s 25th anniversary last year, I had the honor of stepping into the role of president. Taking on this role, following a year of reflecting on the organization’s impact, was a unique privilege. I originally joined the foundation as a program officer in 2002 and have watched most of our 25-year journey unfold from the inside.
And like any new leader, I’m asking myself what we can learn from and carry forward from our successes over the past 25 years, but also where we should evolve, shift, or innovate. It’s a hard but essential question for any foundation focused on long-term impact.
So, I’m especially grateful that Gordon and Betty left us their guidance in the form of their Statement of Founders’ Intent. Having had the opportunity to engage with Gordon and Betty personally around that statement, I remember how thoughtfully they spoke about wanting to be clear about what was essential to them, and yet not wanting to overly constrain future generations of foundation staff who might be grappling with unanticipated challenges and opportunities. It gives us the ability to navigate the future by a clear beacon: What would make Gordon and Betty proud?
This approach has yielded meaningful results. While our anniversary allowed us to acknowledge many of those milestones, it also afforded us the opportunity to imagine what might be possible over the next 25 years.
As we face shifting landscapes and emerging challenges together, we have an opportunity to deepen our collaborations, to learn from one another, and to continue grounding our work in evidence, partnership, and optimism about what’s possible. We will continue to pursue transformative impact at scale and uphold the principles that define this foundation, namely humility, rigor, and respect for one another and, especially, for the work of our grantees.
As a grantmaker, our responsibility is to enable our grantees to do great things. We seek out partners with whom we share a genuine vision for collective impact, and we strive to be worthy of the trust that such a partnership requires. In their Statement of Founders’ Intent, Gordon and Betty advised us: “Don’t jerk the grantees around.” It’s simple guidance that shapes how we show up as partners.
The work featured in this annual report represents only part of what the foundation accomplished last year, but together these stories offer a window into the possibilities that emerge when a vision is matched with sustained commitment.
The report also illustrates how our focus does not waver: We aim to advance scientific discovery, conserve nature, and preserve the special character of the Bay Area. These are the areas where we believe our resources, our patience, and our partnerships can do the most good — as we have for the past 25 years and will do for many years to come.
Thank you for being part of this work. I look forward to what we will build together.
With gratitude,
Aileen S Lee President, Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationOur Statement of Founders’ Intent and Approach to Philanthropy reinforce a commitment to measurable impact, time-bound strategies, and regular evaluations of our Initiatives. During the Moore Foundation’s anniversary year, we looked at both the last decade-plus of work and new opportunities worth exploring to guide the future of our grantmaking.
Lessons from external evaluations of our Conservation and Markets and Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiatives led us to extend our work in these areas by another 10 years. Both Initiatives incorporated takeaways from those external evaluations to reframe and adapt our approaches to that work. Drawing on past experience, we refocused our marine conservation work onto the Arctic with the Arctic Ocean Initiative. We also announced a new Initiative focused on green chemistry.
We believe that these long-term investments will equip us to make durable, meaningful change.
Despite spanning different areas, all four Initiatives share the same guiding principles – define a scale and time horizon appropriate for the size of the problem, measure and adapt along the way, and take the time to learn what is and is not working to shape the next round of decision-making.
Building on more than 20 years of work in marine conservation, in May 2025, the foundation launched a 10-year, $270 million Initiative to support the resilience of the Arctic Ocean as shifting sea ice alters the ecosystem and opens waters to fishing, shipping, and development. With these changes comes the opportunity to help plan and manage for the future before large-scale degradation sets in.
Over the past 12 years, our Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiative has advanced understanding of how complex quantum matter in materials behaves. In September 2025, the foundation opened the next phase of the Initiative, committing $230 million over the next 10 years. The Initiative will focus on broad scientific challenges in developing new material systems, tools, and methods to continue propelling the field forward.
Over the past decade, our Conservation and Markets Initiative has worked to reduce overfishing and habitat degradation associated with globally traded seafood and agricultural commodities. In June 2025, the foundation announced a 10-year, $400 million extension of the Initiative alongside $22 million over three years focused on transition minerals. The next phase of the Initiative focuses on scaling up and aims to delink high-impact food commodities and transition mineral extraction from environmental harm.
In June 2025, the foundation announced a seven-year, $93.4 million effort centered around green chemistry – the discovery and design of higher-performing chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or production of hazardous substances that harm humans or the environment. Green chemistry is an established field, but our analysis of the funding landscape showed that there is room to support basic research in core areas that can enable the development of new methods and knowledge while fostering global collaboration among scientists. Inspired by Gordon Moore’s own training in chemistry, progress here has the potential to make chemical products and processes higher performing while reducing hazards to human health and the environment.
Milestone anniversaries are, no doubt, an occasion to reflect on how far you have come. Our partners have accomplished so much over the past 25 years, and that indeed is worth celebrating. However, in keeping with our commitment to long-term, meaningful impact, in the midst of our anniversary year, we thought it was also essential to look ahead at what challenges and opportunities the next 25 years might hold for our work in environmental conservation, science, and the Bay Area.
Throughout 2025 and into early 2026, we convened experts and thought leaders at six distinct symposia and dove deep on a variety of topics. We gave them time and space to sit together, ask difficult questions, and think through potential solutions.
We kicked off the symposium series in Lima, Peru in May 2025, partnering with the Seminario Permanente de Investigación Agraria: SEPIA to bring together conservation experts, policymakers, Indigenous representatives, and civil society leaders. Participants acknowledged there has been significant progress in Amazon conservation as Indigenous territories and protected areas have grown over the years, but persistent threats remain from sources such as illegal mining, land trafficking, and infrastructure development. Looking ahead, enhancing legal mechanisms and defining environmental standards through strengthening Indigenous governance, leveraging new technologies, and building partnerships across sectors and generations will create new opportunities for protecting the Amazon.
The foundation has worked with partners in the region since its inception in 2001 and then more formally through our Andes-Amazon Initiative since 2003. Our goal remains the same: bringing at least 70% of the Amazon forest cover and the freshwater ecosystems that sustain it under effective management and conservation to avoid a planetary ecological tipping point. To get there, we will need to continue building a strong community in which Indigenous peoples, environmental defenders, scientists, youth, governments, and philanthropy work together to protect the region.
We kicked off the symposium series in Lima, Peru in May 2025, partnering with the Seminario Permanente de Investigación Agraria: SEPIA to bring together conservation experts, policymakers, Indigenous representatives, and civil society leaders.
Read full story on Moore.org
We kicked off the symposium series in Lima, Peru in May 2025, partnering with the Seminario Permanente de Investigación Agraria: SEPIA to bring together conservation experts, policymakers, Indigenous representatives, and civil society leaders. Participants acknowledged there has been significant progress in Amazon conservation as Indigenous territories and protected areas have grown over the years, but persistent threats remain from sources such as illegal mining, land trafficking, and infrastructure development. Looking ahead, enhancing legal mechanisms and defining environmental standards through strengthening Indigenous governance, leveraging new technologies, and building partnerships across sectors and generations will create new opportunities for protecting the Amazon.
The foundation has worked with partners in the region since its inception in 2001 and then more formally through our Andes-Amazon Initiative since 2003. Our goal remains the same: bringing at least 70% of the Amazon forest cover and the freshwater ecosystems that sustain it under effective management and conservation to avoid a planetary ecological tipping point. To get there, we will need to continue building a strong community in which Indigenous peoples, environmental defenders, scientists, youth, governments, and philanthropy work together to protect the region.
In June 2025, the foundation partnered with the American Academy of Microbiology to host a session at ASM Microbe 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Read full story on Moore.org
In June 2025, the foundation partnered with the American Academy of Microbiology to host a session at ASM Microbe 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Prior to the session, we supported a series of interdisciplinary workshops that brought together experts to discuss both the current state of the field and future opportunities. This resulted in a report examining evolutionary trajectories of ancient microbial lineages, which drove the discussion during the event. Following the event, two experts discussed their takeaways on the Meet the Microbiologist podcast.
The event and earlier workshops emphasized the value of a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach and of connecting researchers from across the world to facilitate interdisciplinary science. There remain many unanswered questions about the origins of early microbial life that could inform biotechnology, environmental sustainability, climate science, and even planetary exploration. The event reinforced the exciting potential for discovery and growth in the field as technological developments in areas such as microscopy, synthetic biology, and single-cell sequencing could drive future, groundbreaking progress.
Science museums have long served as spaces for the public to connect with science and scientists, explore natural phenomena, and discuss the science underlying emerging issues.
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Science museums have long served as spaces for the public to connect with science and scientists, explore natural phenomena, and discuss the science underlying emerging issues. The Bay Area is no exception. In August 2025, the foundation invited stakeholders from the Bay Area’s largest science museums to discuss current opportunities and challenges, including shifts in public trust, evolving technologies, and financial and operational pressures, and to open a dialogue about how these institutions can continue to serve as touchstones for science and as public goods.
Participants focused on themes such as cross-institutional collaboration, new approaches to community engagement, and innovations that improve the visitor experience. By working together, our local museums are exploring new ways to build and sustain trust in science, strengthen their business models, and engage new audiences across the Bay Area.
Most of the universe remains invisible to the Standard Model of particle physics, but a new generation of ultra-sensitive detectors is starting to close that gap.
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Most of the universe remains invisible to the Standard Model of particle physics, but a new generation of ultra-sensitive detectors is starting to close that gap. In October 2025, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the American Physical Society brought researchers to Chicago for "Physics beyond the Standard Model," a symposium exploring how superconducting detectors, cryogenic sensors, and optomechanical tools sensitive enough to register a single atom's recoil are bringing some of physics' biggest open questions (e.g., the mass of the neutrino or the nature of dark matter) within reach.
The event highlighted how cross-disciplinary collaboration is accelerating discovery using rare isotopes with unusual properties, weak interaction measurements, and new physics searches. Researchers reflected on how far detection technology has come — and how today's instrumentation breakthroughs are setting the course for fundamental physics in the future.
In January 2026, we partnered with Systemiq and Brunswick Group to convene senior leaders from business, finance, science, and civil society in Zurich, Switzerland.
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In January 2026, we partnered with Systemiq and Brunswick Group to convene senior leaders from business, finance, science, and civil society in Zurich, Switzerland, to discuss how food systems might evolve over the next 25 years. Participants started with a discussion of a handful of hypothetical scenarios about what the food system could look like in 2050, which led to a dialogue on what is possible for the future of the food system.
Participants identified the need for shared analytical foundations that allow companies, investors, and governments to make sense of the transition together. They noted that the future of food is not set in stone, nor will it be determined by one actor or solution. It will depend on the choices we all make going forward, and our Conservation and Markets Initiative will continue to build coalitions that enable shared innovation and progress.
The final symposium took place in February 2026 in San Francisco, California, where the foundation partnered with National Geographic Pristine Seas and the Commonwealth Club of California.
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The final symposium took place in February 2026 in San Francisco, California, where the foundation partnered with National Geographic Pristine Seas and the Commonwealth Club of California to host a discussion about the future of the Arctic Ocean. Conservationists Louie Porta, Enric Sala, and Barbara ’Wáahlaal Gíidaak Blake led a discussion about the challenges posed by receding sea ice and the opportunity to guide development and protect ecosystems before large-scale degradation occurs.
There are valuable opportunities for proactive conservation in the Arctic, and the future of the region is still being shaped today. Through our Arctic Ocean Initiative and grantee partners, the Moore Foundation will continue work to protect biodiversity, strengthen stewardship, and support long-term planning across the region.
Looking back on the past 25 years, we are inspired by the work of our grantees and partners. While certainly not comprehensive, the milestones featured in the timeline below offer a window into the possibilities that emerge when bold ideas are matched with sustained commitment.
The foundation was established to function in perpetuity. In 2001, we started with 175 million shares of Intel stock. As of December 31, 2025, the endowment grew to nearly $13 billion. Over the course of those years, we gave more than $6.9 billion through grants and other charitable activities.
Line chart showing grants paid in each individual year from 2001 through 2025, with separate annual series for Science, Environment, Patient Care, Bay Area, and Special Funds. Values do not include grants from preceding years. Patient Care and Special Funds are unavailable for 2001 through 2003 and begin in 2004.
Doughnut chart showing exactly $5,972,303,515.42 in cumulative grants paid through 2025: Science $2,354,314,940.45; Environment $2,359,856,818.97; Patient Care $605,928,043.87; Bay Area $443,241,380.07; and Other $208,962,332.06.
Bar chart showing cumulative grants approved from 2001 through 2025, reaching exactly $6,664,045,078.96 in 2025.
Stacked bar chart comparing exact year-end endowment value and annual spending from 2003 through 2025. In 2025, year-end value was $12.860847767 billion and annual spending was $0.51894277 billion.
