John Templeton Foundation
BIOGRAPHY
Heather Templeton Dill is president of the John Templeton Foundation. Prior to assuming this role in 2015, she served as executive liaison to the president under her father, the late Dr. Jack Templeton. Dill is the granddaughter of the late Sir John Templeton.
In her tenure as president, Dill and the Foundation have awarded 1,534 grants and donations totaling more than $1.026 billion. The John Templeton Foundation funds research and catalyzes conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder. The work supported by the Foundation crosses disciplinary, religious, and geographical boundaries across a range of subjects in the sciences, philosophy, and theology, from gratitude and hope to the psychology of purpose and positive neuroscience.
One of the main programs of the Foundation is the Templeton Prize, valued at $1.3 million. It is one of the world’s largest annual individual awards to honor individuals whose exemplary achievements advance her grandfather’s philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.
The 2022 Templeton Prize Laureate, Dr. Frank Wilczek, joined a list of 51 Prize recipients including Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and the Dalai Lama. The 2021 Templeton Prize went to ethologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall. In the fall of 2021, Dill and Dr. Goodall co-authored an op-ed for USA Today on human resilience and hope.
Dill has spoken at various venues on living in a pluralistic world, on the research-supported benefits of a life of purpose, as well as the importance of intellectual humility. In 2020, she received the Citizen Diplomat of the Year Award, from Citizen Diplomacy International Philadelphia, jointly with Jennifer Templeton Simpson, and she was selected by Main Line Today magazine for its 2019 Women on the Move issue. In 2022, she was named #6 on the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Power 100 from City & State Pennsylvania. She was featured on the cover of the donor-focused philanthropic magazine Lifestyles in a major profile for its spring 2023 issue.
