{"id":226869,"date":"2025-10-15T10:47:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T17:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/?p=226869"},"modified":"2025-10-16T09:26:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:26:22","slug":"this-3-1-billion-fund-channels-paul-allens-wealth-what-kind-of-grantmaker-will-it-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/home\/this-3-1-billion-fund-channels-paul-allens-wealth-what-kind-of-grantmaker-will-it-be","title":{"rendered":"This $3.1 Billion Fund Channels Paul Allen\u2019s Wealth. What Kind of Grantmaker Will It Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

The late Paul G. Allen, who amassed billions as a cofounder of Microsoft, devoted a large share of his philanthropy to ambitious scientific, biological and technological goals \u2014 like mapping the human brain, understanding the immune system<\/a> or developing beneficial uses of AI. Though he died in 2018<\/a> at age 65, he left behind a well-funded constellation of institutes and funding entities<\/a> that have made multimillion-dollar commitments to advance research, sometimes partnering with local and national public research organizations like the National Science Foundation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newest entrant to the world of Allen philanthropy<\/a> is the Fund for Science and Technology (FFST). Jody Allen, Paul’s sister and long a key force in the family’s philanthropy, is board chair of the new foundation. Also on the board is mega-billionaire Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and cofounder of the Ballmer Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the Allen team created the Fund for Science and Technology in 2022, hiring and operational gestation took a few years, and it was only this summer, according to the fund, that it was sufficiently staffed to commence grantmaking. The fund recently announced the first round of grants out of its initial $3.1 billion endowment, committing at least $500 million over the next four years as it commences its mission to focus on Allen’s longtime interests in bioscience, the environment and AI. I spoke recently with Lynda Stuart, FFST’s inaugural president and CEO, to learn more about the fund’s goals and expected grantmaking approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding work at the intersection of bioscience, environment and AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“We have a formal philanthropic mandate to support across these three areas of bioscience, the environment and AI,” Stuart told me. “But I’m actually interested not just in those three pillars, but in where they intersect. You can imagine that there’s important applications of biology and bioengineering in environmental applications, or of AI in accelerating biological design, or in the role of AI in the environment. We don’t see those three pillars as distinct \u2014 we see them as overlaps.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what kind of grants will FFST make? First of all, pretty sizable ones, typically of millions of dollars each. The recently announced first round of grants, totaling $15 million, is directed not at individual research studies, but to support major institutional programs, reflecting the foundation\u2019s goal to empower institutions to drive progress in broad fields of research. The initial grants were spread among four established research institutions based in Seattle, Paul Allen’s hometown and the base for Allen philanthropy more generally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the first grantees, $10 million went to the College of the Environment at the University of Washington to support research into climate and environmental science. The remaining $5 million went to three other important Seattle institutions. Benaroya Research Institute got support for its biorepository of biological samples used in research. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center received funding to study the immune system\u2019s role in cancer and autoimmune disease and for the development of new cell therapies for cancer. And money went to Seattle Children\u2019s to continue research studies of pediatric cellular immunotherapy treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases, and to fund new research to create cell therapies for young people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While FFST may well make future grants in the Seattle area, it has a global outlook. “We deliberately made those first investments within Seattle because we wanted to acknowledge Paul’s origins within the city and to shine a light on some of the amazing centers of excellence here,” Stuart said. “But we are a global funder, and we’ll fund across the nation and across the world \u2014 we’re already looking at grants in other parts of the U.S. and in other countries.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stuart, a physician-scientist, comes to FFST with an international background that seems like good preparation to assess the kinds of cross-discipline solutions the foundation seeks to foster. She earned her undergraduate, medical and Ph.D. degrees in the U.K., and has more than 20 years of experience in research in immunology and global health, including in the translation of research into real-world therapeutics and products. She was executive director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine, which is focused on AI-enabled protein design. She was also previously vice president of infectious disease at BioNTech, a company that gained wide recognition for its development of COVID-19 vaccine technology. And Stuart also has experience in big bioscience philanthropy: She was deputy director, global health at the Gates Foundation, where she oversaw COVID-19 vaccine development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Related Inside Philanthropy Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Subscribers Only<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n