Our Impact
2025: Advancing opportunity across Oregon
At the PGE Foundation, we believe strong communities thrive when people have opportunities to gain the skills, tools and knowledge they need to pursue meaningful work and community connections that endure over time. As an independent grantmaking organization, aligned with the priorities of Portland General Electric, we are dedicated to helping communities across Oregon through philanthropic investments in education, workforce readiness and community resilience.
Established in 1997, our mission is to enhance quality of life for Oregonians statewide. In 2025, we deepened that commitment through investments in career-connected learning, responsive support during times of need and established new efforts to be launched in 2026 to help communities prepare for and adapt to climate-related challenges.
Our Impact in 2025
We invite you to join us in creating lasting, meaningful impact for Oregonians. Together, we can empower Oregon’s workforce, foster innovation, and create resilient communities.
Career-connected learning: By supporting organizations addressing the growing need to engage students early and often in applied, career-connected learning, we are helping youth build skills, confidence and curiosity.
Responding in real time: Through our Responsive Philanthropy Fund, the Foundation responded to immediate community needs during a year of economic uncertainty for many families. We supported the Boardman Food Pantry and Oregon Food Bank, to help ensure community access to essential nutrition following reductions in publicly funded food benefits.
Reaching rural communities: In 2025, 23% of total grant funding supported rural communities outside of the Portland tri-county area — a 6% increase from the prior year. Our grantees are expanding access to education, workforce training and economic opportunities in ways that respond to local priorities and build long-term capacity.
Meeting emerging needs: Looking ahead, PGE Foundation's new Climate Resilient Communities Fund, developed in collaboration with community partners across the state, will support locally led efforts that help communities prepare for, adapt to and recover from the impacts of climate-related disruptions.
2025 Impact Report
In 2025, the PGE Foundation invested more than $1.6 million to expand access to education, workforce opportunities and community resilience across Oregon. Through Career-Connected Learning grants, we supported hands-on experiences that helped students explore career pathways, build confidence and translate learning into meaningful work. Our Responsive Philanthropy Fund provided timely support to trusted community organizations, helping meet essential needs during a period of economic uncertainty. We also increased our investment in rural communities and launched new efforts to support locally driven climate resilience. Together, these investments reflect our commitment to strengthening communities through opportunity, partnership and long-term impact.
Career-Connected Learning
Building futures through hands-on learning:
Beaverton Education Foundation, Hillsboro Schools Foundation, The School Foundation (Bend-LaPine), Oregon STEM
Families, educators, employers and students alike recognize the importance of introducing students to STEM and career and technical education (CTE) well before high school, when interests and aspirations begin to take shape. As school districts face stretched budgets and growing demands that make it difficult to fully fund these experiences, local school foundations and community-based education organizations are stepping up to help close the gap.
Career Pathways
Community-powered pathways to prosperity: AntFarm Youth Services and Heart of Oregon Corps
Access to meaningful work — work that brings purpose, dignity and family-sustaining wages — is foundational to strong, resilient communities. Yet job training, mentorship and real-world experience for youth and adults in Oregon is often uneven and out of reach. That’s why we are investing in organizations like AntFarm Youth Services and Heart of Oregon Corps, two organizations that remove barriers to employment and create hands-on opportunities rooted in community needs and addressing local workforce challenges.
Creative Expression
Empowering youth to connect and create: Caldera
Through our Creative Expression grants, we invest in organizations that integrate creativity into education and youth development, with a focus on communities where access to arts experiences may be limited. Caldera is engaging kids in immersive nature-based learning experiences that encourage exploration, connection and personal growth.
Responsive Philanthropy
Answering the call in 2025 — Food security: Oregon Food Bank and Boardman Food Pantry
As rising costs, economic strain and climate-related disruptions increased demand on emergency food providers across Oregon last year, the PGE Foundation joined Oregon’s philanthropic community during a moment of heightened need to help stabilize and support essential services when they mattered most to families across the state.
Climate Resilient Communities
Evolving impact: Climate Resilient Communities Fund
In 2026, the PGE Foundation will launch a new grant pillar focused on climate resilient communities—an investment shaped by listening closely to the people and organizations working on the front lines of climate change across Oregon. The Climate Resilient Communities fund is designed to support community-driven solutions that reduce the risks of climate impacts, strengthen preparedness and build long-term resilience, particularly in communities historically under-resourced and overexposed to environmental harm.
Do you have a project that needs funding?
Our grants are separate from the corporate contributions of Portland General Electric. In addition to awarding project and program grants, we also award grants for operating expenses and new and existing capital construction projects for organizations whose mission, vision and values align with our funding opportunities.
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