Skyline Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Skyline Foundation supports climate solutions, education, journalism, birth justice, democracy, and nonprofits.
IP TAKE: The Skyline Foundation is a multiyear funder that gives its grantees “space for risk and creativity.” The foundation engages in trust-based philanthropy and most of its recent grants have taken the form of unrestricted, general operating support, which is good news for its grantees. Unfortunately, Skyline tends to support the same established organizations and does not have an active application process. However, it links to its recent 990s on its website and provides a method for those with questions to reach out to staff — see contact info below. Ultimately, this is a difficult funder to get a foot in the door, but it could be a fruitful partnership once you’re on their radar.
PROFILE: Established in 2000, the Skyline Foundation, formerly the Yellow Chair Foundation, is the primary giving vehicle for Yahoo! Co-founder David Filo and his wife Angela. It seeks to find and fund “organizations with inspired, innovative leadership whose missions align with the foundation’s values and vision for the future.” Filo co-created the Yahoo! search engine with fellow student Jerry Yang while earning his Ph.D. at Stanford. Angela graduated from Stanford with a degree in human biology and from U.C. Berkeley with a master’s in journalism. She was elected to the Stanford Board of Trustees in 2015 and has served on the Stanford Challenge K-12 Advisory Council. Angela is also a former journalism and photography teacher at Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, which gets support from the foundation, and a former member of the board of directors of the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C.
Skyline’s funding programs include Climate Solutions, Just Democracy, Equity in Education, and Birth Justice. The foundation partners with Pacific Foundation Services, which provides the foundation with infrastructure and back-end support.
Grants for K-12 and Higher Education
The foundation’s Equity in Education program supports education groups and programs serving low-income students and students of color. The focus area funds equity programs in public schools, professional development training for teachers and administrators, and efforts to increase college enrollment for students traditionally denied access to higher education.
- Grants that predate Skyline’s Equity in Education program include endowed chairs at Tulane University’s engineering department and Stanford’s Engineering School. Filo also partnered with Netscape founder Jim Clark to make matching $30 million endowments to Tulane University, with the $60 million going into an endowment used to fund $3 million in undergraduate merit-based scholarships per year.
- Additional education grantees include $4.5 million over three years in 2024 and $3 million over three years in 2021 to Amalgamated Charitable Foundation’s Resource Equity Funders Collaborative.
- Others include Stanford University’s Bing Nursery School, where the Filos endowed a faculty chair for the study of poverty and inequality in education, National Center for Teacher Residencies, Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, 826 National, Project on Predatory Student Lending, and Eastside College Preparatory School, where Angela once taught journalism and photography.
Look over the foundation’s searchable grants database for more previous grant recipients.
Grants for Democracy, Civic Engagement, and Journalism
The Skyline Foundation’s Just Democracy program supports organizations working across two interrelated areas. Its democracy focus area supports nonprofits working to increase civic participation and defending voting rights for disenfranchised peoples. Its journalism grants work to “strengthen the news and information ecosystem” by supporting high quality journalism and diverse journalists.
- In 2024, Angela and David Filo created a pledge challenge of $10 million to UC Berkley’s Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Additionally, the Skyline Foundation was one of the initial donors for Press Forward, a $500 million effort to revitalize local newsrooms across the U.S.
- Recent grantees include $5 million over three years to ProPublica, $3.5 million over three years to Economic Security Project, and $3 million over three years to Give Directly.
Look over the foundation’s searchable grants database for more previous grant recipients.
Grants for Climate Change
Skyline’s Climate Solutions grant program looks to effect significant, long-term change. It supports climate organizations with projects that are effective, scalable, and include communities most impacted by the climate crisis.
- Grantmaking funds programs and projects that help to move the needle on clean energy, advocate for developing technologies designed to reduce climate change, protect breathable air and drinkable water in affected communities, and help create and mobilize local grassroots groups.
- Recent climate grantees include Environmental Defense Fund, which was given $9 million over three years, as well as Rewiring America and Climate Catalyst, both of which received $4.5 million over three years.
Look over the foundation’s searchable grants database for more previous grant recipients.
Grants for Reproductive and Maternal Health
Skyline’s Birth Justice program works to “improve the birth experience” in the U.S. by advocating for normalization of midwifery in healthcare, increasing access to birth centers, and promoting diversity among midwives and other maternal healthcare workers to birth experience disparities.
Past reproductive grants include $825,000 to National Partnership for Women & Families, $750,000 to Purchaser Business Group on Health, and $750,000 to California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative. Look over the foundation’s searchable grants database for more previous grant recipients.
Important Grant Details:
Grants range between about $1,000 and $5 million. The most common amount is $25,000.
- The foundation gave away over $65 million in grants in a recent year and held more than $964 million in assets.
- The Skyline Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals or requests for funding.
- Recent financial documents are available near the bottom of the foundation’s About page.
Direct general questions to the staff at info@skylinefoundation.org.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS: