The Foundation’s newly realigned Mexico portfolio focuses on the following priority areas: Transparency, Philanthropy, and Strengthening the Knowledge Base for Development.

Funding priority will be given to Mexico-based organizations, and in each of the three areas, we are especially interested in building capacity and working outside of Mexico City.

Transparency
The Hewlett Foundation aims to foster democratic consolidation and economic development in Mexico by using its investments to deepen and entrench transparency, right-to-know, and accountability mechanisms in Mexico. Specifically, work in this area seeks to strengthen Mexico’s federal Freedom of Information law by extending its use among citizens and the private and non-profit sectors and by expanding citizens’ transparency rights to state and local levels.

Philanthropy
 The Philanthropy component of the Mexico portfolio seeks to work across sectors to increase institutionalized philanthropy with a focus on Mexico’s social development. Our ultimate goal in this component is to increase the flow of philanthropic dollars and pesos to Mexico –from both domestic and diaspora sources– in order to support the expansion and long-term sustainability of civil society organizations. At the heart of this component is the notion that private philanthropy and organized civil society are important development factors for Latin America. A key strategy of this component is to support projects that will foster a more propitious enabling environment to strengthen and enhance philanthropy in Mexico.

Strenghening the Knowledge Base for Development
Work in this component focuses on applied public policy research with the aim of fostering a critical mass of analysis, rigorous diagnosis, and practical proposals from a plurality of sources. The goal of the component is to greatly improve the quality of the public policy debate in Mexico and the independent institutional capacity to address development challenges with practical, informed proposals. The component has two intertwined objectives: 1) to strengthen and influence the quality of the public policy debate on topics related to economic development in Mexico; and 2) to strengthen Mexican institutional capacity to conduct applied research on the development issues the country faces.