SOURCE OF WEALTH: Nvidia
FUNDING AREAS: Education, health, arts and culture, Bay Area community
OVERVIEW: Curtis Priem does grantmaking through the Priem Family Foundation, which gave away around $15 million in a recent year. The bulk of giving has gone to Priem’s alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The foundation prioritizes education and nature conservation and seeks to “reduce human suffering.”
BACKGROUND: Curtis R. Priem graduated with a B.S.E.E. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1982. He was a hardware engineer at GenRad, a staff engineer for Vermont Microsystems and a senior staff engineer at Sun Microsystems. In 1993, Priem co-founded NVIDIA Corp., a leading manufacturer of graphics and multimedia integrated circuits. He established the Priem Family Foundation in 1999 in California.
ISSUES:
EDUCATION: Education is the Priem Family Foundation’s largest area of giving. Priem has directed more than $100 million to his alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he serves on the board of trustees. RPI is home to the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. Via the foundation, Priem has also supported RPI’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, which used funding to produce the Molecularium Project, an educational film that introduces children to the field of nanotechnology. Another recent higher education grantee, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, received $2.5 million in a recent year for Other education grantees include Castro Valley Unified School District, Palomares Elementary School Improvement Project and Castro Valley High School Athletic Boosters.
HEALTH: Priem’s health funding has been limited to hospitals in the state of California, with recent grants going to the St. Rose Hospital Foundation in Hayward and the Washington Hospital Healthcare Foundation in Fremont.
ARTS AND CULTURE: Priem’s arts and culture funding overlaps with its higher education giving. The foundation’s largest arts grantee is the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. Other recent arts and culture grantees include the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and Josh Groban’s Find Your Light Foundation, which supports arts education for underserved and special needs students nationally.
BAY AREA COMMUNITY: The Priem Family Foundation gave $1.73 million to help purchase 1,476 acres of land to expand Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park in the Bay Area. Other Bay Area grantees include the Alameda County Deputy Sheriff’s Activities League and the Palo Alto-based senior services provider Avenidas.
LOOKING FORWARD: Expect Priem to continue to focus on his alma mater and the Bay Area. Grantmaking via the Priem Family Foundation has been gradually increasing over the past few years.
CONTACT:
The Priem Family Foundation
180 Park Rd.
Burlingame, CA 94010
(650) 342-5915
LINK:
