Steve and Connie Ballmer have donated more than $8 billion over the past two decades and established the Ballmer Group in 2015. Now, the couple is restructuring how future giving decisions are made.

Ballmer Group, the couple's economic-mobility philanthropy, is spinning off its three regional offices into separate, independent nonprofits. The new entities — MoveUp Southeast Michigan, MoveUp LA, and MoveUp Washington — will operate autonomously while continuing to receive funding from the Ballmers. Steve Ballmer served as CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014 and has an estimated net worth of $177 billion, ranking him as the ninth-wealthiest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Economic mobility has become a growing focus among large-scale philanthropists, withGiving aimed at helping people move up the income ladder through education, housing, health, and workforce-development investments — areas reflected across Ballmer Group's grant portfolio.

Among the Ballmer Group's largest gifts are a $425 million donation to the University of Oregon to create the Ballmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health, a $237.5 million contribution to Blue Meridian Partners for its Place Matters Initiative, and an up-to-$165 million pledge to Communities In Schools to expand its student-support model to 1,000 additional schools.

Regional Roots Drive the Strategy

Each of the three regions holds personal significance for the couple. Steve Ballmer grew up in Southeast Michigan; the pair owns the Los Angeles Clippers in Los Angeles County; and Washington State is home. The rationale for dividing the philanthropy into three parts is to move donation decisions closer to the people executing the work on the ground — an approach that aligns with a broader movement in philanthropy toward community-led grantmaking, where local leaders shape funding priorities based on direct knowledge of the challenges their regions face.

"How do we keep staying close to the work, and how do we empower our leaders?" Ballmer Group CEO Terri Ludwig told Fast Company in an interview published Monday, describing the new organizations as startups rather than spinoffs.

According to a Ballmer Group release on July 1, each organization will form its own board while continuing its existing regional programs and adapting to local needs. Ballmer Group staff in each region will transition to the new entities over the coming year. Current grantees will maintain their commitments without disruption.

Ludwig will serve as a founding board member for all three organizations while continuing to lead Ballmer Group, which will concentrate its own efforts on a smaller portfolio of large-scale, scalable national initiatives.

"Our intention is to ensure that these local philanthropies can be permanent, ongoing resources in each region, while we concentrate our national efforts on advancing economic mobility in new ways," Steve and Connie Ballmer said in a joint statement.

The financial structure of the new organizations remains under development, though an endowment model is among the options being explored, GeekWire reported.

The Origins of Ballmer Group

Connie Ballmer launched the couple's philanthropic efforts approximately 25 years ago, well before Steve's Microsoft stock options translated into billions. Her early work centered on Washington State's foster-care system, and she initially wrote donation checks from their kitchen table, according to Fast Company.

Steve and Connie formally founded Ballmer Group in 2015. The couple has maintained a comparatively lower public profile than fellow billionaire philanthropists such as MacKenzie Scott, who frequently makes headlines for her large-scale giving and cumulative $26 billion in donations. Scott does not publicize her gifts herself. Her former husband, Jeff Bezos, and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, are also prominent philanthropists, overseeing the Bezos Earth Fund and other major initiatives that attract significant attention.

Connie Ballmer has become more visible in recent months. In April, she personally donated $80 million to NPR — one of the largest gifts in public media history — following the Trump administration's push for Congress to cut approximately $1.1 billion from public broadcasting. The contribution was a personal gift, not a Ballmer Group grant, reflecting Connie's dedication as an avid NPR listener.

"We need fact-based journalism, and we need local journalism," Ballmer told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published in April.

Leadership and Forward-Looking Philosophy

Ludwig joined Ballmer Group in 2019 from Enterprise Community Partners, a national housing-development nonprofit, following a earlier career in finance. She encourages newly wealthy individuals emerging from the AI boom to begin philanthropic giving rather than waiting for an ideal strategy.

"Start with the problem you deeply care about," Ludwig told Fast Company. "Find the people who are closest to the challenge, learn from them, and begin. Refine your approach over time."

That philosophy underpins the Ballmer Group's revised strategy: channeling resources toward the people who already understand the work firsthand.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.