Leadership[edit]

John Templeton (29 November 1912 – 8 July 2008) was an American-born

British investor, banker, fund manager, and philanthropist. In 1954, he
entered the mutual fund market and created the Templeton Growth Fund.
[7]
 According to a 2011 profile of the foundation:
Like many of his generation, Templeton was a great believer in progress,
learning, initiative and the power of human imagination — not to mention
the free-enterprise system that allowed him, a middle-class boy from
Winchester, Tennessee, to earn billions of dollars on Wall Street. ... Unlike
most of his peers, however, Templeton thought that the principles of
progress should also apply to religion. He described himself as "an
enthusiastic Christian" — but was also open to learning from Hinduism,
Islam and other religious traditions. Why, he wondered, couldn't religious
ideas be open to the type of constructive competition that had produced so
many advances in science and the free market? [3]
These were the values he sought to promote first through the Templeton
Prize which he started in 1972 and then through the foundation, which he
founded in 1987 and ran until his death in 2008. [3]
John Templeton Jr. was president of the foundation from its inception in
1987 and worked as a pediatric surgeon; he was chief of pediatric surgery
at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in 1995, when he stopped practicing
medicine to join the foundation. [2] He took over as chairman when his father
died. He was an evangelical Christian and supported various American
conservative causes.[8][9] He always maintained that he tried to run the
foundation according to his father's wishes instead of his own wishes. [10] He
died in 2015.[8]
Heather Templeton Dill, the daughter of John Templeton Jr., became
president in 2015.[11]

Endowment[edit]
Templeton bequeathed around $500 million to the foundation when he died
in 2008.[3] As of 2015 the foundation's total endowment had grown to $3.34
billion.[2] The foundation reports that it has issued over 3,300 grants, with
over 2,800 of those going to recipients in North America. [12] In 2016, the
foundation disbursed over $151,000,000 in grants. [13]

Prizes[edit]
Main article: Templeton Prize

Mother Teresa received the inaugural Templeton Prize in 1973.

Marcelo Gleiser is a recent Templeton Prize recipient, having won in 2019.

The Templeton Prize was established by John Templeton and he
administered the prize until the foundation was established in 1987, which
took it over.[3][14] The prize has "a value of about $1.7 million, making it one
of the world’s largest annual awards given to an individual". [2]
The early prizes were given solely to people who had made great
achievements in the field of religion; Mother Teresa received the inaugural
award in 1973,[3] with other early winners including Sir Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan (1975),[15] Chiara Lubich (1977),[16] and Nikkyō
Niwano (1979).[17] In the 1980s, John Templeton began considering the
intersection of science and religion, and after he appointed two scientists to
the judging panel, scientists who worked at the intersection began receiving
it; Alister Hardy was the first, in 1987.[3] More recent winners of the
Templeton Prize have included the Dalai Lama in 2012,[18] King Abdullah II
of Jordan in 2018,[19] Brazilian Jewish physicist and astronomer Marcelo
Gleiser in 2019,[20] and primatologist Jane Goodall in 2021.[21]

Grants[edit]
Templeton "was a great believer in progress, learning, initiative and the
power of human imagination—not to mention the free-enterprise system".
[3]
 While most of its funding goes to topics in science, philosophy, and
religion, around 40 percent of its annual grants go to character
development, genius, freedom and free enterprise, and fields associated
with classical liberalism. Grants are given to people across all religions,
since Templeton believed progress in the field of spirituality could come
from anywhere.[3] The field of grants was broadened in the 1980s to include
scientific fields like neuroscience, psychology, and cosmology, that could
be seen as being at the intersection of science and religion. [3]
Some research programs supported by the foundation have included the
development of positive psychology by Martin Seligman, Angela
Duckworth and others;  the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University;[23]
[22]
[24]
 the Gen2Gen Encore Prize; the World Science Festival;[25] Pew religious
demographics surveys;[26] and programs that engage with Buddhist, Jewish,
Muslim, Hindu, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant traditions, including
support for dialogue with scientists in synagogues, [27] and a grant for
advancing scientific literacy in madrasas.[28][29][30]
As of 2015, the foundation has awarded nearly a billion dollars in grants
and charitable contributions, and was the 55th largest grantor among
American foundations.[2]
The top ten largest grants of 2018 were:[31]
Project Applicants Institution Amount

American
Jennifer
Science for Seminaries: Association for
Wiseman, Se $6,182,109
Phase II the Advancement
Kim
of Science

Character Lab
Research Network: Angela
The Character
Revolutionizing Duckworth, $3,717,258
Lab
Research on Character Sean Talamas
Development

Atlas Economic
Doing Development Matt Warner,
Research $3,095,213
Differently Brad Lips
Foundation

Thor
Freedom Forum Global Human Rights
Halvorssen, $3,074,788
Expansion Foundation
Alex Gladstein

Small-Scale
Gerald Northwestern
Fundamental Physics $3,000,000
Gabrielse University
Block Grant

Epigenetic Diagnostics
Michael Washington State
for Preventative $2,936,242
Skinner University
Medicine

Exploring the Sarah Walker, Arizona State $2,904,374

Informational Paul Davies University
Transitions Bridging Foundation for a
Simple Chemistry and New American
Project Applicants Institution Amount

Minimal Life University

Spiritual Exemplars: A University of

Donald Miller,
Global Project on Southern $2,783,594
Megan Sweas
Engaged Spirituality California

Reasoning in moral Liane Young, Boston College

$2,743,961
thought and action Fiery Cushman Trustees

Character Strength
Interventions in
Sarah
Adolescents: Engaging
Schnitker, Fuller Theological
Scholars and $2,616,085
Benjamin Seminary
Practitioners to
Houltberg
Promote Virtue
Development

For the ten largest grants from 2012 through 2017, [31] click here: show

For the ten largest grants up to 2011,[3] click here: show

Physics[edit]

The Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University received a Templeton

Foundation grant of over seven million dollars in 2016.
Black Hole Initiative[edit]
In 2016, the foundation granted over seven million dollars to the Black Hole
Initiative (BHI), an interdisciplinary program at Harvard University that
includes the fields of Astronomy, Physics and Philosophy, and is said to be
the first center in the world to focus on the study of black holes.[32][33]
[34]
 Notable principal participants include Sheperd Doeleman, Peter
Galison, Avi Loeb, Ramesh Narayan, Andrew Strominger, and Shing-Tung
Yau.[32] The BHI Inauguration was held on 18 April 2016 and was attended
by Stephen Hawking;[35] related workshop events were held on 19 April
2016.[32]