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Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation
The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation was formed in 1992, funded by the wealth Jon Shirley accumulated as a core member of Microsoft's founding-era leadership...
Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation
The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation was formed in 1992, funded by the wealth Jon Shirley accumulated as a core member of Microsoft's founding-era leadership team. Shirley joined the company in 1983 as president and COO, steering operations through the IPO and early public-market years. With his wife Mary, he structured the foundation to support visual arts, education, and human services, with an unusually concentrated focus on major museum-scale gifts rather than broad small-dollar grantmaking. The foundation's grantmaking concentrates in the Pacific Northwest, with the Seattle Art Museum as its longest-standing primary beneficiary. Jon Shirley served as SAM board chairman, and his wife Kim Richter Shirley remains a trustee (per public record). Beyond the Olympic Sculpture Park, the Shirleys have funded acquisitions and exhibitions at the museum, including support for the Shirley Family Calder Collection. The foundation also directs funding toward educational institutions and select human-service organizations in King County. Unlike many Microsoft-fortune philanthropies that spread across global health and policy, the Shirley Foundation operates with a distinctly local, arts-centric mandate. The Shirleys maintain a separate philanthropic vehicle, The Kim and Jon Shirley Foundation, alongside The Erick Shirley Foundation for Mental Health, named for their late son. Collectively, the family's giving structures address arts access, mental health, and community welfare. Jon Shirley is a Young Presidents' Organization member and trustee of the Museum of Flight. The family's known non-philanthropic assets include a historically significant automobile collection featuring a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO and a 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B, with select cars shown at concours events including Pebble Beach. The foundation's structural differentiator is its permanence-oriented arts patronage model: rather than issuing annual responsive grants, it concentrates capital on institution-defining real estate and collection gifts. The Olympic Sculpture Park represents a rare private-to-public infrastructure transfer, creating a maintained civic asset that reshaped Seattle's waterfront. This approach contrasts with the more common foundation pattern of diversifying across numerous small grantees and instead reflects an endowment-style investment in physical cultural capital.
General information
Firm type
Endowment / Foundation
Year founded
1992
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Seattle
Corporate office
Seattle, WA, United States
Principals
Jon A. Shirley
Co-Founder
Mary Shirley
Co-Founder
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Where does the foundation's wealth originate?
The foundation's endowment derives from Jon A. Shirley's tenure at Microsoft, where he served as president and chief operating officer from 1983 through the company's 1986 IPO and early public growth. Microsoft equity formed the core of the family's wealth, and Jon Shirley and his late wife Mary established the foundation in 1992. Jon Shirley is widely recognized as one of the early operational architects of Microsoft alongside Bill Gates.
What is the foundation's most significant grant or project?
The Olympic Sculpture Park is the foundation's landmark philanthropic achievement. The Shirleys spearheaded the creation of this 9-acre public park on Seattle's waterfront, which opened in 2007 and was donated to the Seattle Art Museum. The park features monumental outdoor sculptures, including Alexander Calder's 'The Eagle,' and operates as a free public museum and green space, transforming a formerly contaminated industrial site into a major civic destination.
What areas does the foundation primarily fund?
The foundation concentrates its giving on visual arts and art museums, with the Seattle Art Museum as the primary institutional partner. It also funds educational organizations and human-service providers, predominantly in the Pacific Northwest. The focus is notably narrower and more place-based than many other Microsoft-derived foundations, reflecting the Shirleys' personal ties to Seattle's cultural institutions.
How does this foundation relate to other Shirley family philanthropic vehicles?
The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation is one of several giving structures within the family. Separate entities include The Kim and Jon Shirley Foundation and The Erick Shirley Foundation for Mental Health, the latter named for Jon and Mary's late son. These vehicles appear to operate with distinct missions — the primary foundation focuses on arts and education, while the other entities address broader community welfare and mental health respectively.
What is Jon Shirley's history with Microsoft?
Jon Shirley joined Microsoft in 1983 as president and chief operating officer, arriving from Tandy Corporation. He managed the company's operational scaling through its period of hypergrowth, including the 1986 initial public offering. Shirley left the COO role in 1990 but remained on the Microsoft board of directors through 2008, spanning the entire Gates-Ballmer transition era.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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