Our Approach

Look for Unmet Needs

We look for work that matters and still struggles to get funded, like research with no commercial payoff or a stretch of seafloor nobody has mapped. A dollar goes further where few others are giving.

Trust Our Partners

The Foundation doesn’t run its own programs. We fund organizations that know their fields better than we do, then step back. Grantees choose their methods and reach their own conclusions, and we judge a partner by the quality of its work rather than by whether the results suit us.

Keep Knowledge Open

Research paid for with charitable dollars should belong to everyone. Every project we fund publishes its findings and shares its data, including the results nobody hoped for. Someone else’s next idea may depend on it.

Follow the Evidence

As an investor, Gilfoyle learned their field by reading primary sources, the actual filings of institutional managers, and their firm’s research division works from the view that markets behave as interconnected systems. The Foundation brings that habit to its giving. We go to the underlying data, and we look at how a problem connects to the systems around it before deciding where a grant can do the most.

Stay Independent

The Foundation doesn’t lobby, and it never supports or opposes a candidate or party. Its grants are kept separate from the founder’s business interests. Independence is what lets people who disagree with each other trust the same piece of research, so we guard it closely.