The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has given more than $5.1 billion to charitable causes since it was founded in 2000.
The biggest single gift went to Conservation International: $395 million, described as the largest ever made to a private conservation organization. Separately, the foundation has put more than $500 million in grants toward protecting over 400 million hectares of historic forest cover in the Andes-Amazon region, a stretch that takes in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Suriname.
Gordon and Betty Moore signed the Giving Pledge in 2012, promising to give away at least half their wealth. Their pledge letter explained the thinking. “In 2001 we devoted half of our wealth to create a foundation that would take risks in order to innovate and achieve meaningful results.”
Backing a climate vote
Moore also gave money to politics. On October 18, 2010, he donated $1 million to the “No on Prop 23” campaign in California. Proposition 23 would have suspended the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, known as AB 32, until unemployment fell to 5.5% or below. Voters defeated it by 23%, and the state’s greenhouse gas emission controls stayed in place.
