A note from the Grove Foundation: We are saddened to announce that our beloved Co-Founder and Board Member, Eva Grove, passed away on Wednesday, May 31st, 2023. We miss her immensely but are heartened that the end of her life was peaceful and surrounded by her family. We ask that you keep the entire Grove family in your thoughts. Our team primarily works remotely; we ask those who wish to send condolences to do so by email rather than physical mail. Thank you for respecting the peace and privacy of the Grove family during this difficult time.
To read more about the legacy and impact of Eva Grove, you can read her obituary here. If you knew Eva and were impacted by her generosity, please consider writing a public note or posting a picture on our “Kudos Board“.
Sincerely,
Leslie Dorosin, Executive Director, and the Grove team
The Grove Foundation was founded by Andy and Eva Grove, who came to this country as a refugee (Andy) and an immigrant (Eva). Andy grew up in Hungary and survived the holocaust by hiding his Jewish identity during the war; Eva left Austria with her family at age 3, after her father was rounded up with other Jews on Crystal Night, and fortunately released because the family had papers to leave the country. Eva grew up in Bolivia until her family moved to New York City when she was 18. Andy escaped his country in the wake of the failed Hungarian Revolution by crossing the border into Austria, where the International Rescue Committee helped him resettle in America.
Andy and Eva attended the City College of New York and Hunter College, respectively. They met and married in New York in 1958. Both Andy and Eva found safety, support, acceptance, and opportunity in the United States. Andy earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and then worked at Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1968 he participated in the founding of Intel, of which he became president in 1979 and CEO in 1987. He served as Intel’s board chair from 1997-2005. Andy passed away in 2016. Eva earned her master’s in social work from Columbia University and has served in many volunteer and leadership capacities.
In 1986, Andy and Eva founded the Grove Foundation with a board that included themselves and their two daughters, Karen and Robie. At this time, the cornerstone of the Foundation was to support service organizations similar to the ones that supported Andy and Eva as immigrants to the United States. Over the years, the couple observed that Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBT people did not receive the same treatment or have access to the support they had received. This led to a shift in funding priorities.
Today, Karen leads the foundation, and its philanthropic goals have evolved to prioritize building democratic power to change systems while continuing to fill gaps in the systems that exist. The Foundation intentionally funds the most marginalized communities to lead the work and adapts the way the foundation operates its grantmaking processes and reporting to center the needs of change-makers.
The Grove’s driving force and inspiration are to trust in and shift power to its program officers, grant managers, and the people and organizations at the frontlines of critical social justice movements. The foundation resources the people most impacted by oppression and injustice – those living at the intersection of racism, sexism, transphobia, disability, xenophobia, and classism, to name a few, so that they can design, implement, and sustain solutions.
