The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for a future where all people have jobs that come with fair wages and benefits, a future where everyone has a safe and affordable home, and a future where we all engage in developing policies that govern our lives. But we won’t get there with just hope. It will take the hard work of organizing, leading, and building this future together.
We have the opportunity to usher in this future. We can do better than business as usual. We can rebuild a Bay Area that centers equity and inclusion.
The San Francisco Foundation established the Bay Area Leads Fund to underwrite our leadership activities to create an equitable Bay Area. This past year, the fund supported our efforts to convene cross-sector decision makers to improve working conditions for low-wage workers, keep people in their homes, and harness the vibrancy of our diverse region. It enabled activities to engage people in the democratic process by hosting voter education forums and publishing voter guides. The fund also allowed us to produce valuable research revealing the pandemic’s inequitable impacts on different populations, and made possible our advocacy work to create systems that allow everyone in the Bay Area to thrive.
This work is made possible by the generous support of Bay Area Leads Fund donors, who in fiscal year 2021 donated nearly $580,000. Thank you for helping us make this work a reality. We invite you to take a look at our Bay Area Leads Fund 2021 Report – a year that has been, in many ways, unlike any other. We look forward to seeing how we, together, will continue to double down on this work in the year to come.
With gratitude,
Ophelia Basgal, Board Chair
