The Berkman Center for Internet & Society was founded in 1997 with a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman. The Berkman family has continued its steadfast support with periodic contributions toward the Center’s programs and operations. In July of 2016, the Center became the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society in recognition of a significant gift from Michael R. Klein that not only provides vital core support but also allows the Center to launch new initiatives.
In addition to these major gifts, the Berkman Klein Center has received additional financial support over the years, mostly grants from foundations, but also contributions from corporations, private donors, international organizations, government entities, and court-awarded settlements in class-action cases.
While foundation grants typically support specific research efforts, all individual and corporate donors agree to contribute their funds as gifts rather than grants, for which there are no promised products, results, or deliverables. While the Center has in the past accepted corporate gift support for a small number of projects, not comprising more than 10% of the Center’s annual budget – with donors listed here – the Center currently does not have any corporate funding.
The court-awarded settlements have been used to advance the Center’s research and education efforts into online privacy, consistent with the spirit of the litigation. The Berkman Klein Center and its respective scholars retain full discretion on the design and implementation of, and specific expenditures to support, all its academic activities enabled by such gifts and court awards.
Detailed below is a list of gifts and other funding sources (ranked alphabetically) that are currently funding activities of the Center, followed by a list of class-action settlements that have funded activity in the past. In addition to those listed by name, we occasionally accept donations from individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
Information on past sources of funding is available here.
GRANTS AND GIFTS
David Bohnett Foundation: gift in support of an art exhibition curated by metaLAB@Harvard to query contemporary reflections of artists and artistic researchers on, with, and by social media. The show and associated programming was held at the Harvard Art Museums in the spring of 2022.
Georgetown University: grant to collaborate on concepts of law, technology, and ethics, such as privacy and confidentiality, individual and group consent, individual and group fairness, and distribution. Through December 2024.
Reid Hoffman: gift in support of ongoing digital teaching and learning at the Center, including further development and promotion of educational tools such as H2O, in conjunction with the Library Innovation Lab. An additional unrestricted gift helps support the Institute for Rebooting Social Media.
Michael R. Klein: gift for the general support of the Berkman Klein Center.
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation: grant in support of the Rebooting Social Media pop-up institute to convene talent from academia, industry, and the public sector to improve the future of social media and online communication. Through June 2024.
Also from the Knight Foundation: gift in support of the Center’s Global Technology Governance Fellowship program.
Frank McCourt, Jr. and Project Liberty: a gift to benefit the Applied Social Media Lab, a first-of-its-kind program to assess and build social media technology in the public interest.
Miami Foundation: grant to the Berkman Klein Center and affiliated Cyberlaw Clinic that supports the Initiative for a Representative First Amendment, a fellowship program for law students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented among First Amendment and freedom of expression practitioners in order to diversify the set of issues and questions addressed by law school clinics; and to train and assist existing clinics doing work on free expression and related issues to be more welcoming and inclusive in both their practices and their dockets. Through December 2024.
Craig Newmark Philanthropies: gift in support of the Rebooting Social Media pop-up institute to convene talent from academia, industry, and the public sector to improve the future of social media and online communication.
Research Council of Norway: sub-award for Algorithmic Accountability through the BI Norwegian Business School to offer a business ethics perspective on how social, commercial, and political actors on both a local and global scale can ensure accountability in algorithmic decision-making processes. Through December 2023.
Also funded through a sub-award from the BI Norwegian Business School, the Research Council of Norway supports the AI Triple Partnership, an initiative to strengthen the ongoing academic collaboration among three internationally diverse research groups in Norway, the US, and Brazil, to build a world leading knowledge network in responsible Artificial Intelligence. Through December 2023.
Stella P. Holt Foundation: gift for the general support of the Berkman Klein Center.
COURT-AWARDED SETTLEMENTS
The Berkman Klein Center has been the recipient of occasional court-awarded cy pres settlements. These are the results of class action litigation, in which the court decides to issue funds to research or advocacy organizations that conduct work that generally benefits the affected class. Such awards to the Berkman Klein Center have been the result of privacy-related litigation and thus directed toward the Center’s longstanding suite of privacy initiatives.
The Berkman Klein Center’s most recent cy pres award was a 2017 share of the settlement of In re: Ashley Madison Data Security Breach Litigation (U.S District Court, Eastern District of Missouri). In recent years, the Center also received cy pres awards in connection to the litigation of Fraley v. Facebook (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division) and Nader v. Capital One Financial (U.S. District Court of the Central District of California). The Center does not currently hold any funds from such settlements.
Last updated October 13, 2023