Nicole Shanahan Gives $100 Million for Reproductive Research and Other Causes

Bia-Echo Foundation

Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer who founded and leads ClearAccessIP, a patent-valuation and management company, announced Friday she will give $100 million to programs that help women become pregnant later in life, that aim to overhaul the criminal-justice system, and that address the effects of climate change.

The money will flow over five years through the Bia-Echo Foundation, a grant maker she launched this month.

Shanahan, who in 2018 married Google co-founder Sergey Brin, serves as president of the new foundation. The couple gave about $20 million to start the foundation this year and plan to put money into it over the next five years to support the $100 million it plans to give out during that time.

Shanahan said she intends to focus on the three causes for now and doesn’t yet know if she will expand what the foundation supports in the coming years.

“Our current approach right now is to work within our anchor investments,” said Shanahan. “I want to keep our operating overhead low and be conscientious of making sure the funds get put to work on the ground.”

Nonprofits that want to apply for grants for reproduction or criminal-justice programs should apply through one of two groups with which Bia-Echo is partnering: a consortium set up at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging for reproductive longevity and the Stanford Computational Policy Lab for criminal justice.

She said she is still in the process of developing what kind of climate-science work she wants to support.

Quiet Donor

Until now, Shanahan, who is 34, has been a fairly quiet donor. As a lawyer, she saw flaws in the criminal-justice system and in recent years has given to groups trying to correct those flaws through the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, a grant maker through which a number of Brin’s family members, including his parents, give to charity.

In 2018, she gave $6 million through the foundation to the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. That donation established the Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality to study and help women become pregnant later in life. It was the first investment she made toward work she now plans to support through Bia-Echo.

Personal Struggles

Her interest in reproductive longevity came about through her own experiences trying to get pregnant, Shanahan said. She could not go through the early stages of in-vitro-fertilization treatment because she had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition in which the ovaries sometimes fail to regularly release eggs.

Shanahan grew up in Oakland, Calif., in what she describes as a low-income, single parent, Chinese-immigrant household. She was raised with the idea that anyone in the United States could pull themselves “out of adversity.” But when Shanahan learned she might not be able to have children, she saw it as an injustice.

“It was at that moment that it became clear to me that this was an inequity and that no amount of science was going to allow me out of it. I didn’t have any options forward,” she said.

Shanahan and Brin had a baby earlier this year, but the experiences of their struggle to get pregnant prompted Shanahan to investigate how much money was going into fundamental research into women’s reproduction and ovarian health. She said she was stunned that she could only identify about $6 million a year in new funding.

Shanahan hopes the Bia-Echo Foundation’s grant making and partnerships will accomplish a number of new developments, especially into treatments or therapies that will extend the female reproductive timetable by 20 years so that women will be able to conceive a child into their mid-50s.

In the area of criminal justice, she said she would like to see fewer people going to prison and the elimination of bail for nonviolent offenses.

She also hopes other foundations will join Bia-Echo’s efforts. “Nothing would make me happier at this point than if we inspire other foundations to join us.”

Maria Di Mento directs the annual Philanthropy 50 , a comprehensive report on America’s top donors. She writes about wealthy philanthropists, arts organizations, key trends, and insights related to ultra-high-net-worth donors, among other topics.