“Martin is going to have a much tougher job than I’ve ever had,” quipped SFF’s first CEO, John May, in an interview soon after he passed the baton to Martin Paley in 1974. May, it turns out, was right.
Martin Paley, who passed away on September 12 at the age of 94, came to SFF after serving on a social planning council and working as a public health planner for hospitals and medical schools. He had no prior foundation experience, but he brought with him a fierce passion for social justice, and a commitment to those whom our systems leave behind – values that remain central to SFF’s work today.
As SFF’s second CEO (then called Director), Paley deepened our commitment to a number of issue areas, including public interest law, the arts, and the environment. During his tenure, SFF also provided more funding to LGBTQIA+ organizations than any other foundation in the country, and seed funded powerful disability rights organizations, including the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, which bestowed Paley with its Ed Roberts Award in 2021.
In 1981, he helped introduce a fellowship program to provide early-career community leaders with exposure to philanthropy. Four decades later, more than 100 community leaders have participated in that program, now called the Multicultural Fellowship Program, which counts current SFF CEO Fred Blackwell as one of its alumni.
Martin Paley at SFF’s Grantee Reception Day in 1984. Photo: SFF archives.
Paley was also at the helm during the most trying moment in SFF’s history: the Buck trust. In the 1980s, he led the organization in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to expand the restrictions on the foundation’s largest bequest to date, arguing that the expansion would better serve those with the greatest needs in the Bay Area. “It touched off a firestorm that was quite significant. It was painful,” he told us in an interview in 2021. “It was a very, very challenging time for the board, for the staff, for the community, and for the Bay Area.” Read our summary of the Buck Trust.
After SFF, Paley went on to lead the San Francisco Library Foundation and Koret Foundation, never leaving his passion for philanthropy and community. “I wish the San Francisco Foundation 75 years of additional success in making this community stronger, better, and more robust,” he shared to mark our milestone anniversary in 2023. “And I encourage people to think of it as a repository for their future dollars so that [SFF] can remain current in responding to the needs of the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Left to right: Former SFF CEO Sandra Hernandez, Joan Cole (partner of Martin Paley), former SFF CEO Martin Paley, current SFF CEO Fred Blackwell at SFF’s 75th anniversary celebration in 2023. Photo by Adriana Oyarzun.
