Waitt Foundation

Waitt Foundation

Founded in 1993 by Gateway co-founder Ted Waitt, the Waitt Foundation is a private charitable entity anchored in North Sioux, South Dakota. Waitt’s wealth originates from the personal-computer boom of the late 1980s and 1990s, where Gateway’s direct-sales model and distinctive cow-spotted boxes made it one of America’s most recognized PC brands. The foundation’s mission concentrates on ocean health, funding the Waitt Institute as its primary programmatic vehicle to advance sustainable fishing and marine protected areas globally. The foundation’s deployment model centers on philanthropic and mission-related investing across the Americas, Oceania, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. It acts not as a passive grantmaker but as an operational architect: the Waitt Institute partners directly with national and territorial governments to design Blue Prosperity Plans that combine marine spatial planning, fisheries reform, and protected-area designations. Confirmed engagements include collaborative programs in the Caribbean and Oceania. Ted Waitt’s board service at the National Geographic Society and his chairmanship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies shaped the foundation’s data-driven, science-heavy approach to conservation. Managing Director Cherie Prothro-Shea, a former Gateway executive, oversees day-to-day operations for the foundation. The wider Waitt family ecosystem includes commercial assets such as the Orli La Jolla hotel, co-founded by Maxwell and Hailey Waitt, alongside residential properties in Malibu, Beverly Hills, and San Francisco. Ted Waitt’s brother, Norman Waitt Jr., is a partner at Waitt Company, indicating a broader family patrimony beyond the foundation’s core philanthropy. Structurally, the Waitt Foundation is distinguished by its quasi-operating posture within a donor-advised field. Rather than outsourcing program design to grantees, the foundation houses its own institute to directly execute multi-year, multi-jurisdictional conservation plans. This blurs the line between a standard grantmaking endowment and an in-house operating nongovernmental organization, giving the Waitt Foundation uncommon control over the design, implementation, and measurement of its ocean-conservation mandate.