The Hershey Family Foundation
Preselected recipients only
The Hershey Family Foundation is a private foundation in Boston, Massachusetts. In tax year 2024 it gave $6.6 million in 43 grants; the typical grant was $100,000 and the largest $750,000. It only gives to organizations it selects itself and does not accept unsolicited applications.
From its IRS Form 990-PF for tax year 2024.
- Grants paid, 2024$6.6 million
- Number of grants43
- Typical grant$100,000
- Largest grant$750,000
- Assets$82.8 million
- New grantees23%
Giving in 2024 was up from $6.5 million the year before.
23% of its 2024 grantees had not received a grant from it the year before, a mix of repeat and new grantees.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants paid | Number of grants | Assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $6.5 million | 45 | $80.8 million |
| 2024 | $6.6 million | 43 | $82.8 million |
How to apply
The Hershey Family Foundation says in its IRS filing that it only makes contributions to preselected organizations, so unsolicited applications are unlikely to be considered. Organizations it funds are usually invited.
What The Hershey Family Foundation funds
Where it gives
Its grants went to recipients in 18 states, the most to Massachusetts.
| State | Grants | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 18 | $3.2 million |
| Colorado | 4 | $820,681 |
| New York | 3 | $643,600 |
| Ohio | 2 | $400,000 |
| Wisconsin | 1 | $250,000 |
| California | 2 | $217,304 |
| Rhode Island | 2 | $215,000 |
| Alabama | 1 | $100,000 |
| District of Columbia | 1 | $100,000 |
| Illinois | 1 | $100,000 |
Grants paid in 2024
| Recipient | Purpose | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Whole School Mindfulness | Women's studio workshop envisions a society where women's visual art is integral to the cultural mainstream and permanently recorded in history. Our mission is to operate and maintain an artists' workspace that encourages the voice and vision of individual women artists, provides professional opportunities for artists at various stages of their careers, and promotes programs designed to stimulate public involvement, awareness, and support for the visual arts. | $750,000 |
| Pres & Fellows Harvard University | Scholarships, grants, and awards to students (both undergraduate and graduate) and faculty of harvard university, ma | $500,000 |
| Mind and Life Institute | Fund projects that advance our understanding of the mechanisms, implementation, and outcomes of contemplative approaches to promote well-being and prosocial behavior in individuals and communities. | $451,900 |
| Women's Studio Workshop | To operate and maintain an artists workspace that encourages the voice and vision of individual women artists, to provide professional opportunities for artists and to promote programs designed to stimulate public involvement, awareness and support for the visual artist. | $400,000 |
| Partners in Health | Our mission is a preferential option for the poor in health care. By establishing long-term relationships with sister organizations based in settings of poverty, partners in health strives to achieve two overarching goals: to bring benefits of modern medical science to those most in need of them and to serve as an antidote to despair. | $350,000 |
| Hershey Montessory School | Funding for educating children from infancy to 12 years of age and adolescents. | $300,000 |
| Brigham & Women's Hospital | Funding for physical wellness fund at brigham and womans. Brigham and women's hospital is dedicated to: serving the needs of our local and global community, providing the highest quality health care to patients and their families, expanding the boundaries of medicine through research, | $250,000 |
| Univ of Wisconsin Foundation | Aids university of wisconsin-madison by soliciting gifts and bequests, administers and invests securities and property and distributes payments for benefit of uw-madison. | $250,000 |
| Harvard Divinity School | Harvard divinity school is a nonsectarian school of religious and theological studies that educates students both in the pursuit of the academic study of religion and in preparation for leadership in religious, governmental, and a wide range of service organizations. | $200,000 |
| Inward Bound Mindfulness Education | Funding for youth training | $200,000 |
| Oxfam America | Funding is for the creation of lasting solutions to end poverty, hunger and injustice. 170(b)(1)(a)(vi) | $200,000 |
| Graduate School Fund (Harvard) | Funding to harvard university for graduate programs. | $150,000 |
| Karuna-Shechen | Karuna-shechen works to provide health care, education, and social services for the under-served populations of india, nepal, and tibet. | $143,600 |
| Uc Davis Foundation | Funding for university of california, davis to educate students. | $137,304 |
| Mind and Life Institute Summer Research Institute | Funding for meetings between western scientists and leading contemplative figures to study similarities and differences between western scientific practices and contemplative meditational techniques. | $132,195 |
| Mind and Life Institute Europe Varela | Funding for grants awarded annually to research scientists who have attended the european summer research institute (esri). These grants fund scientific and scholarly examinations of contemplative techniques, with the ultimate goal that findings will provide greater insight into the mechanisms of contemplative practice and its application for reducing human suffering. See in the list below all eva recipients and their research projects. | $128,084 |
| Prison Mindfulness Institute | Provides prisoners, and those who work with them, with the most effective contemplative tools for self-transformation and rehabilitation. | $125,000 |
| Mind and Life Institute Mind & Life Europe | Mle is a home for unconventional interdisciplinary encounters, where researchers and practitioners enrich one another in their understanding of mind and life, through the rigour of scientific inquiry, the openness of philosophical investigation, the edginess of artistic exploration, and the depth of contemplative wisdom traditions. We believe that holding an open-hearted and interdisciplinary space of dialogue is in itself a radical, ethical mode of being-in-the-world, which generates new pathways of research and collective sense-making with transformative potential. | $108,502 |
| Buddhist Digital Resource Ctr | Using state-of-the art technology, the buddhist digital resource center is the leader in the field of digital preservation of buddhist texts, working with local partners to provide free access for the global community. The buddhist digital resource center is the largest online archive of tibetan and buddhist texts in the world, and provides open access to this incredible body of literature via an online library, a mobile app, and hard drive distribution programs. | $100,000 |
| Equal Justice Initiative | Eji is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the united states, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in american society. | $100,000 |
| Feeding America | Funding for america's hungry through a nationwide network of food banks in the fight to end hunger. | $100,000 |
| Finca | Funding helps provide financial services to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs. | $100,000 |
| Health Equity International Fka Saint Boniface Haiti Foundation | Health equity international is dedicated to providing essential health services to the people of southern haiti, especially the most vulnerable. We are committed to building a comprehensive, efficient, and resilient health system that provides high quality care. We believe that ensuring access to life-saving and life-changing health services is a critical component to building strong and productive communities. | $100,000 |
| Holden Forests & Gardens | Connects people with the wonder, beauty, and value of trees and plants, to inspire action for healthy communities. | $100,000 |
| Institute for Advanced Study | The institute exists to encourage and support fundamental scholarshipthe original, often speculative, thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the institute takes place in four schools: historical studies, mathematics, natural sciences and social science. It provides for the mentoring of younger scholars by a permanent faculty, and it offers all who work there the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the institute. The institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in princeton, new jersey. | $100,000 |
| Sravasti Abbey | Funding supports a flourishing monastic community where learning and practicing buddhas ancient teachings cultivate peace in the hearts of residents, visitors, and the world. | $100,000 |
| The Hunger Project | Funding goes towards empowering people to create lasting progress through education, health, nutrition, family incomes and gender equality. | $100,000 |
| Upaya Institue and Zen Center | Upaya zen center is model of socially engaged buddhism. It brings together many projects focused on social transformation, including work in prisons, end-of-life care, serving the homeless, training of chaplains in socially engaged practice, peace and non-violence work, training of clinicians all over the world in compassionate care, and delivering healthcare in remote regions of the himalayas. Upaya is a global community for those working to create racial, economic, and environmental justice, compassionate care for the most vulnerable, and a place of committed, daily contemplative practice and learning through its retreats, trainings, and programs, free dharma podcasts and community services. | $100,000 |
| Brown University | Funding to brown university for contemplatice studies initiative. | $90,000 |
| Altruism in Medical Institute | To increase compassion and resilience among health care professionals and their patients. We deliver lectures and workshops; write curriculum; publish books; and collaborate on metrics to measure outcomes. Over the past years our compassion trainings have impacted a growing number of health care professionals. | $80,000 |
| St Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies | Contemplative research and education. | $80,000 |
| Funderburg Scholars | Funderburg scholars is an all volunteer organization that helps inner city youth attend college. 86% of our funds were used for tuition and 13% for textbooks. The students are those who attended the unitarian universalist urban ministry's after school roxbury youth program. | $75,000 |
| Haiti Projects Inc | Funding for the employment of local haitian women to create embroidered products and linens to stimulate income production and employment opportunities. | $75,000 |
| Teensmart International | Funding life-skills education for teenagers | $60,000 |
| Wisdom Publications | The leading publisher of contemporary and classic books and practical works on buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and other contemplative traditions. Wisdom is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to cultivating writers and teachers the world over, advancing critical scholarship, preserving and sharing the literary culture of various contemplative traditions, and helping people find and engage with the teachers, teachings, and practices for a wise and compassionate life. | $60,000 |
| Harvard Law School | Harvard law school offers a range of academic programs, clinics, and student organizations for j.d. And graduate students. | $50,000 |
| Lama Yeshe Wisdom Publications | Funding helps translate, edit, reproduce, publish and distribute educational materials on the teachings of lama yeshe and lama zapa rinpoche to the general public. | $50,000 |
| Tergar International | Transform hearts and minds by making the ancient wisdom of meditation accessible to the modern world. | $50,000 |
| The Huntington | Funding for the huntington theater company. The mission of the huntington is to engage, inspire, entertain, educate, and challenge audiences with culturally diverse theatrical productions that range from classics to new works | $50,000 |
| Global Arts Project for Peace | Funding for the promotion of world peace through use of the arts. | $35,000 |
Officers and trustees
- Barry J Hershey
- Connie Hershey Deceased on 51324
Questions people ask
Does The Hershey Family Foundation accept grant applications?
No. Its IRS filing says it only makes contributions to preselected organizations.
How much does The Hershey Family Foundation give?
$6.6 million in tax year 2024, across 43 grants, with a typical grant of $100,000.
Who runs The Hershey Family Foundation?
Its 2024 filing lists Barry J Hershey (Trustee) and Connie Hershey Deceased on 51324 (Trustee).
What does The Hershey Family Foundation fund?
Based on its grants, mainly education, arts and culture and health.