Tell us about yourself: How did you first get involved in philanthropy? My first direct experience in philanthropy was around the age of 11. It was a gift of a heifer to the people of South Korea, to be “married” to a bull given at the same time by neighbor Mamie Eisenhower, to build up […]

Jane Baker has had a longstanding commitment to supporting grassroots social justice organizations in the Bay Area. She was previously a board member of the Vanguard Public Foundation, which rose to prominence in the late 1960s as a nimble, responsive, philanthropic organization dedicated to advancing equity long before many other foundations took up the cause. […]

Tell us about yourself: I was a Trustee of The San Francisco Foundation for 10 years. When my husband Jim and I opened a donor advised fund at the foundation 15 years ago, that was the catalyst for us to become more intentional about the issues we care about and the organizations we want to […]

We are pleased to announce our latest Program-Related Investment in East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC). Our $875,000 PRI loan will help EBALDC purchase and preserve affordable housing in Oakland. Our PRI will provide capital to EBALDC’s Housing Acquisition Fund, which targets small apartment buildings at risk of conversion to higher rents and threatening […]

I grew up in a small border town in California that is over 95 percent Latino. I visit Calexico every month to be with my parents for a weekend. For a year now, I have seen the level of anxiety increase significantly in my hometown as more uncertainty and confusion grows around the direction of […]

On December 6th, The San Francisco Foundation hosted a Donor Peer Learning Session at our office titled “2016 Election: Where Do We Go From Here?” At the session, donors heard from multiple experts on the current state of affairs in California and the nation since the recent election and then got a chance to share […]

The San Francisco Foundation held the first of its neighborhood walking tours on October 12th. A group of donors visited Chinatown and experienced, for a brief moment, what it’s like to live in this extremely dense neighborhood. Tom, one of our fund advisors, said the tour “was life changing in that it demonstrated how hidden […]

We are pleased to announce a new Program-Related Investment of $950,000 to the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund to help capitalize and launch its loan fund. The Housing Accelerator Fund’s mission is to help produce additional affordable housing in San Francisco by attracting private investment dollars, leveraging city affordable housing subsidies, and moving quickly and […]

When St. Anthony Foundation’s Executive Director Barry Stenger met The San Francisco Foundation’s Fred Blackwell for an impromptu lunch, he was expecting good things. “We had received a notification that we were going to get this significant amount of money,$140,000, so I had presumed that the meeting would be to explain this one-time gift, and why […]

We are pleased to announce a new Program-Related Investment in the Living Cities Blended Catalyst Fund, a structured fund managed by Living Cities.  A nonprofit founded in 1991, Living Cities harnesses the collective power of 22 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions to develop and scale new approaches to improve the economic well-being […]