W e e m p o w e r c h a n g e - m a k e r s , l i k e
y o u , t o m a x i m i z e y o u r c h a r i t a b l e
i m p a c t w i t h p e r s o n a l , m e a n i n g f u l
g i v i n g s t r a t e g i e s
GIVING MANAGEMENT
W e d e v i s e , c r e a t e , a n d m a n a g e t h e
m o s t s u i t a b l e g i v i n g s t r u c t u r e f o r y o u r
p h i l a n t h r o p i c g o a l s , f r o m g r a n t s t o
s c h o l a r s h i p s t o e n d o w m e n t s
ENGAGING COMMUNITY
W i t h O u t p o u r , y o u g e t s o m u c h m o r e
t h a n a d v i s i n g – y o u g e t a t e a m w h o
w o r k s w i t h c o m m u n i t i e s t o e n s u r e
y o u r f i n a n c i a l s u p p o r t i s t r a n s l a t e d
S E R V I C E S W E O F F E R www outpourca org
i n t o m e a n i n g f u l c h a n g e .
San Francisco Bay Area
Welcome to The Giving List San Francisco/Bay Area, 2025/26
Inever thought of myself as a “philanthropist.” Sure, I write checks here and there to causes and organizations I want to support, but I don’t (and can’t) write massive checks, except to my kids’ colleges. But after publishing The Giving List city books for five years, I’ve come to deeply appreciate the value of the contributions to our local nonprofit ecosystem made by donors and supporters (including volunteers) at every level. The Oxford English Dictionary defines philanthropist as: a person who seeks to promote the welfare of others, especially by the generous donation of money to good causes. And certainly, that is true. But generosity comes in many forms, not just a huge financial gift.
The Giving List books came into existence for a few reasons. Two key reasons are: 1. Many nonprofits struggle to tell their own story in a powerful way. 2. Philanthropists don’t necessarily do a lot of due diligence – which is understandable because there are so many nonprofits and so many local needs to know about.
This book is our attempt to help you know about some of the critical work being done by local nonprofit organizations that provide, in many cases, the only safety net that exists beneath the Bay Area’s most vulnerable community members.
Certainly, the organizations written about in this book are not the only local organizations that need and deserve your support. But in this book are wonderful
organizations doing critical work at a critical time and they are worthy of your consideration. And given recent federal and state-wide cuts, they need your support more than ever.
The Giving List team works very hard to produce a publication that will make your philanthropic journey more meaningful and more productive. I hope we have succeeded.
With Gratitude,
Gwyn Lurie CEO, Montecito Journal Media Group
(Photo by Lucia Kiel Portraits)
Giving Back
We launched The Giving List to help the nonprofit organizations featured in this book spend less time fundraising and more time doing the critical work demanded of them.
Confronting the myriad and mounting challenges facing communities, the nation, and the globe requires the ingenuity and dedication exhibited by the nonprofits that fill our pages. We have assembled their stories with the hope that you will see their value and invest in them.
A large proportion of the nonprofits we feature are smaller and more grassroots. This means that while they may have the ideas and leadership to forge change, they don’t necessarily have the diversified revenue streams to reach their fullest impact. We are hoping you will change that by donating and helping them secure the predictable, unrestricted revenue they need to focus on what’s most important: the work. With you, we have the chance to invest in organizations with the potential to take on some of our most pressing challenges.
Please join us by supporting your local nonprofits on the front lines of justice, whether that be fighting racism; using the arts to change culture; helping children, youth, and families in need; or striving to preserve our environment.
We will all be better for it.
How to DAF?
An increasingly popular and efficient tool to manage your giving is a donoradvised fund, or DAF.
A DAF is like a charitable banking account, managed by a community foundation or by some of the world’s largest investment banking firms, where you can make a donation today and direct grants to worthy nonprofits later.
A key advantage with a DAF is that it allows you, the donor, to take a tax deduction in the year you donate money or complex assets, while not compelling you to distribute the money immediately. This can mean time to make more thoughtful decisions about how you want to direct your charitable contributions.
Many financial institutions and community foundations have low to zero start-up fees, making it possible for donors at any level to DAF.
How To Read This Book
The Giving List was created to make it easier for you to navigate the dizzying array of worthwhile causes and nonprofit organizations. To that end, we have distributed The Giving List to people like you: individual donors, staff within the region’s small and large private foundations, and to philanthropic advisors, wealth managers, and estate planners.
As you dive into this book, we want to point out some of its unique features, and of The Giving List program as a whole.
Ongoing Support
Our partnerships with the nonprofits in these pages do not end with the printing of this book. Each profile will live on TheGivingList.com through 2026, where we will be updating each profile once a month so that you can continue to track the important ongoing work of each and every Giving List organization.
We hope that you will use the website as a guide not only for yourselves, but as an easy way to share the work of our partners – whether they be nonprofits, community foundations, or funder affinity groups – with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Staying Connected
We are building a community of people who care deeply about philanthropy and understand the vital role it plays in our world, and we want you to join.
Since launching January of 2022, our bi-weekly newsletter, The Giving List Newsletter, has become a venue for updates from our nonprofit partners and stories from the frontlines of philanthropy.
We would love for you to join The Giving List Newsletter ; please visit www.TheGivingList.com and follow the prompts.
You can also join our newsletter...
... by waving your phone’s camera over this QR code.
Be a Part of The Giving List
Are you interested in having your nonprofit appear in The Giving List? We are, too! We understand that there are thousands and thousands of vital nonprofits doing critical work in the community. While we rely on our years of work in the philanthropic community along with consultations with leaders in the philanthropic sector to select organizations to appear in our program, there are bound to be some very worthy organizations we will invariably miss.
Your nonprofit organization can apply directly to be in The Giving List by scanning the QR code below. It will direct you to an online form to fill out the required information. Once you’ve completed the form, you will immediately land on our radar for consideration in the next available Giving List book. Please note, we do independent vetting before extending invitations to nonprofits to appear in The Giving List.
46 For the Children
Editorial:
The Rising Tide of Volunteerism – How volunteering can make an impact far beyond the nonprofits and those the nonprofits work with – it cascades through communities, family generations, social circles and psychological barriers . . . . P. 20
Conversations:
Legal Services for Children
P. 32
Grace Fisher – An artist, musician, and philanthropist making inclusion a part of everyday life. She’s built a whimsical clubhouse that beckons all
36 Advocacy
Brady: United Against Gun Violence
Brady is on a mission to free America from gun violence P. 38
40 For the Animals
Berkeley Humane Society
Serves the people and animals of the community by providing life-saving programs for cats and dogs, cultivating compassion, and strengthening the human-animal bond
. P. 42
Sage Compassion for Animals
Provides financial assistance for veterinary care to help companion animals in crisis and educates communities about ways to prevent and reduce illness P. 44
Provides free representation to children and youth who require legal assistance to stabilize their lives and realize their full potential. Through a holistic team approach utilizing legal advocacy and social work services, the organization’s goal is to empower clients and actively involve them in the critical decisions that impact their lives. LSC uses this model to achieve safety and stability at home, educational success, and freedom from detention and deportation for its clients P. 48
Mentor Tutor Connection
Enhances the academic, social, and emotional growth of students in the community through meaningful connections with adult volunteer mentors and tutors .
P. 50
There With Care
Provides a wide range of thoughtful and fundamental services to families and children during the critical phase of a medical crisis. The organization serves families referred by medical agencies by building a network of services and people who ease the burden of life’s day-to-day obligations with compassion and care . .
. P. 52
54 Community Resilience
Conversations:
Dick Levy – Understanding problems and finding solutions. Giving back by building community for the next generation .
P. 56
Mission Action
Nurtures individual wellness and cultivates collective power among low-income and immigrant communities to create a more just society P. 60
Peninsula Volunteers, Inc. (PVI)
Enables seniors to age in place
San Francisco Community Land Trust
. P. 62
Creates permanently affordable housing for low-to-moderate-income people through community ownership of the land. Guided by the principles of anti-displacement and racial justice, SFCLT stabilizes neighborhoods and creates greater access to housing and homeownership opportunities with a focus on BIPOC communities previously excluded from access to wealth, and in particular, access to homeownership opportunities
P. 64
66 Education
National Writing Project
Investing in teachers, honoring teaching . . . P. 68
ScholarMatch
Supports underserved first-generation college students from low-income backgrounds in earning a bachelor’s degree within five years. The organization provides virtual individualized advising, targeted financial support, and career mentoring all the way to graduation
P. 70
StreetCode Academy
Bridges the digital divide, empowering communities of color to achieve their full potential by sharing the mindset, skills, and access they need to embrace tech and innovation
P. 72
The Teaching Well
Stabilizes schools by equipping educators with resiliency and socio-emotional skills to communicate and collaborate more effectively P. 74
76 Family Well-Being
Conversations:
Meghan Crowell – Doing “what she can,” to help “whom she can,” as “often as she can.”
Volunteering is in her DNA
Help a Mother Out
P. 78
Works to improve baby and family well-being by increasing access to diapers for families in need. A family’s access to a reliable supply of clean diapers reduces the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, improves baby’s health and comfort, and enables participation in early care and education programs. The organization’s vision is a day when every baby has a healthy supply of diapers . P. 82
Through the Looking Glass
Provides and encourages respectful and empowering services – guided by personal disability experience and disability culture – for families that have children, parents, or grandparents with disability or medical issues
P. 84
86
Social Justice
Law Foundation of Silicon Valley
Advancing the rights of underrepresented individuals and families in the diverse community through legal services, strategic advocacy, and educational outreach P. 88
Legal Link
To remove legal barriers that prolong poverty by adding critically needed capacity to the legal ecosystem. The organization is creating and supporting a new frontline of Legal First Aid responders P. 90
92 For the Environment
Vida Verde Nature Education
LYRIC Center For LGBTQQ+ Youth
Builds community and inspires positive social change through education enhancement, career trainings, health promotion, and leadership development with LGBTQQ youth, their families, and allies of all races, classes, genders, and abilities
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY)
To increase mental health and wellness for underrepresented and BIPOC communities using restorative justice practices . .
Youth Speaks
Creates spaces that challenge youth to amplify their voices as creators of societal change .
P. 94
Promotes educational equity by providing free, overnight environmental learning experiences for students who would not otherwise get the opportunity
96 Youth Development
Conversations:
Tenisha Patterson Brown & Dr. Hagar Elgendy
114 Homelessness
Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco Defending tenant rights and building power since 1979
118
Health & Wellness
. P. 98
Making an impact off the field, these football wives know what it takes to bring lasting change to vulnerable communities .
Futures Explored
Led by the choices of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Futures Explored creates equitable access to relevant programs, supports, and advocacy
P. 104
Pivotal Connections
Helping young people in foster care create the life they want
P. 106
Mandela Partners
Works in partnership with local residents, family farmers, and community-based businesses to improve health, create wealth, and build assets through local food enterprises in limited-resource communities P. 120
MSI United States
Gender equality is a universal human right and is foundational to MSI’s mission of ‘children by choice not chance’
P. 122
Bay Area
Nonprofit by Category Index
CEO & Founder Gwyn Lurie gwyn@montecitojournal.net
President & Founder Tim Buckley tim@montecitojournal.net
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
There is a magic to volunteering, an enlargement of purpose and a re-balancing of energy, that is eerily similar to how it feels to exercise. Endorphins are released; time stands still; and one’s sense of agency and possibility blossoms.
It’s actually called “helper’s high,” that euphoric feeling people can experience after engaging in acts of kindness or helping others. Increasingly backed by science, this social high has been linked to other benefits like improved mood, reduced stress, increased longevity, and stronger social connections.
I remember my early volunteer experiences as vividly as I remember almost anything else growing up. Cleaning up beach litter with my youth group near Santa Cruz; visiting (and singing badly to) elders in a memory care facility; organizing the blood drive at my high school.
As an adult with children, the focus on family and work made it harder to carve out time to expand the circle of support, much less engage in those impromptu volunteer opportunities. But when I think back on the almost 25 years of parenting, the moments that stick out the most also revolve around doing things for others. For my 45th birthday, for instance, my kids played music at our house for a fundraiser for two youths. One was a rising first-year college student in Oakland, and the other a pharmacy student in Nairobi, Kenya. Our friends were delighted to be invited to the event, and we all felt a conflation of joy and purpose, with my kids’ trumpet and clarinet melodies radiating outward through the open windows.
While society has changed dramatically over the past few thousand years, our core religious and social texts have always lifted up the altruistic impulse as our highest aspiration. We can point, among other examples, to the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament, where it is an average person – as opposed to a public leader – who stops to help a wounded man near Jerusalem, offering whatever he can of his time, talent, and treasure to do the right thing.
And in contemporary Jerusalem thousands of years later, sociologist Shalom Schwartz has published a landmark study noting that the most important value across all cultures is that of self-transcendence – the quality of going beyond oneself to help and create community.
Volunteering, in other words, has always and everywhere been the linchpin of philanthropy, no matter the size and scope of that giving.
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
This year, in response to a cascade of domestic and international political developments, as well as a series of family health issues, I found myself eager to return to my volunteering roots. I had a previous connection with the nonprofit Jewish Family and Community Services East Bay, a 150-year-old charity that supports many
communities and individuals in need, that in recent years has also taken on a regional leadership role in helping refugees from Afghanistan, as well as LGBTQ+ folks fleeing persecution in Africa and the Middle East.
I learned from their Executive Director Robin Mencher that sudden, massive funding cuts from the federal government, to the tune of 40% of their operating budget, would result in a significant number of JFCS clients not knowing whether to worry more about hunger or being deported. At their annual event, packed with volunteers, Mencher took the podium to boldly ask: “Does the government get to tell us what kind of neighbors we get to be? The answer is an emphatic no.”
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
– Helen Keller
And so I began, again, to commit to helping my neighbors in a more systematic way by volunteering at JFCS East Bay.
At a farmers market in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Danville, California, a sign for a collective farm features an image of a fist holding a sheaf of wheat and urges visitors to ‘Take what you need, pay what you can.’
Susie Gordon cleaning up the Fillmore District.
I started simply, by working Friday mornings to assemble and organize meals for a mobile food program for home-bound folks. In 2024 alone, JFCS East Bay delivered 4,500 meals to homebound seniors through their holiday meal delivery program. That’s a tremendous impact on the community.
My “job” was to take pre-printed names and addresses and affix them to a brown paper shopping bag, into which I placed a veggie or chicken entree, along with an assembly line of soup, fruit, and apple sauce. This particular program served those of the Jewish faith, and so the meal included the traditional braided challah bread, ritual grape juice, and a hand-written card from a group of kids wishing their elders a peaceful week. On the way into the office, I would stop to get fresh bananas for the delivery; on the way out, I would break down boxes and put them in the recycling.
Rick Gordon cleaning up the Fillmore District.
“Volunteering, change-making, moving the needle on necessary structural change in our society… all of this can feel lonely and overwhelming, even in the best of times. But volunteering creates its own weather system and has a genius of its own, in that it builds community not just among those whom it supports, but among those who volunteer.”
Volunteers from JFCS East Bay delivering food to people in need.
Nkia
“The beauty of volunteering is that we can find a way to contribute to our local community, and the larger community, in a way that fits best for each individual. That might be a one-off opportunity, or something over a longer period of time.”
“Every person can make a difference. Every person should try.”
– John F. Kennedy
Volunteering, change-making, moving the needle on necessary structural change in our society… all of this can feel lonely and overwhelming, even in the best of times. But volunteering creates its own weather system and has a genius of its own, in that it builds community not just among those whom it supports, but among those who volunteer.
Mark Rabinovitz, a retired technology strategist from Boston, has been volunteering for JFCS for more than 20 years. While his first assignment was in food delivery, bringing meals to the elderly or the homebound, he quickly began to help the nonprofit’s growing refugee resettlement program, helping families from Afghanistan, Syria, and other countries needing to rebuild their lives on the fly.
“I was notorious for renting U-Hauls on a Sunday morning, loading up the truck with furniture at the storage location, and working with other volunteers to set up a home that day,” Rabinovitz said.
Today his focus is on delivering the Friday meals, along with visiting elderly Holocaust survivors in need of company.
With all these projects, he said, “it was obvious that I was helping, whether it was bringing food or furniture, or telling stories of my travels, which [homebound folks] enjoyed hearing,” he said. In the last couple of years, he has been visiting a homebound elder. Rabinovitz was shocked when the man, whose health is very delicate, asked him to be in charge of his burial.
“Whatever I do, wherever I have volunteered, the experiences I have are the reward,” Rabinovitz said.
– Nkia D. Richardson, CASA of San Mateo Executive Director
Susan and Rick Gordon took another route to the food delivery assignment. Rick, a retired financial analyst originally from New York City, volunteered as a young man for an ESL reading program in Brooklyn. After he married and began a career, he replaced his hands-on volunteering work with financial support. When they retired to California in 2022, his return to helping people in person, out in the community, became an anchor of his social life.
“Volunteering saved me,” he said, only half in jest.
D. Richardson Executive Director of CASA of San Mateo.
“With all the challenges in the world today, many people are feeling isolated and hopeless. Coming together in community to make positive change is an antidote to that feeling of isolation.”
– David Onek, SV2 CEO
For Susan, living a retired life in a new place, volunteering helped preserve her sense of being part of the social fabric. Time stood still, for Susan, when she could bring her full, joyous self to the doorway of someone eager not just for food, but for companionship, and a sense that they were not forgotten.
These are just two stories. JFCS’s community services coordinator, Zoe Pollock, rattled out dozens of examples of volunteers who not only had been transformative in the lives of the people they helped, but were transformed
Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund’s CEO David Onek.
(Photo by Emmanuel Rondeau)
themselves in turn.
One volunteer, who knew how to navigate the public school system, helped a newly arrived refugee family get their son enrolled for his last year of high school, even though they had been told he wasn’t eligible. Another volunteer, a physician, supported a woman through pregnancy and navigating the health care system. In turn, Pollock reported, “the doctor said she changed the way she thought about her patients, and how she can better provide service to them.”
Those are the moments, said Pollock, when the relationship is transformed, and volunteering becomes community. “It’s no longer ‘I do a thing for you, and you receive support from me.’”
For Robin Mencher, this reframing of power and relationship is where the magic happens. It’s also a model for how social service organizations, and nonprofits of all kinds, can move away from a model oriented toward charity, and toward one geared toward community.
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill
The Bay Area has a long and proud history of being a community that has answered the call of volunteerism. As far back as 1906, after the San Francisco earthquake, long before modern organized volunteerism existed, the city saw relief volunteer efforts arise and support grow from the dust and rubble of its community after an unfathomable tragedy. In 1989, after the Loma Prieta Earthquake, volunteers played a crucial role in search and rescue efforts, sheltering displaced residents and assisting in the recovery efforts. Recent fire seasons saw volunteers distributing supplies, offering mental health support, and aiding in recovering efforts, and the impact of volunteering during the COVID crisis continues to inspire us to do better.
At the same time, as the former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reported in 2023, America is experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness” that has had profoundly negative health consequences. A generation after Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone alerted us to the deepening sense of isolation among most Americans, our addiction to screens, a deterioration of shared civic purpose, and increasing lack of faith in the capitalist enterprise, has led us to see a healthy sense of community as a primary driver of social health.
It’s for this reason that earlier this year, Governor Gavin Newsom created a new entity, Engaged California, as part of the California Volunteers project. The idea is to facilitate two-way conversations between residents and the state, and to encourage volunteerism as an urgent expression of solidarity with the communities in which we live.
The Giving List sat down with First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Honorary Chair of California Volunteers, to ask her about the connection between volunteering and community health.
“I think volunteering is everything. I do,” she said. “None of us are going to achieve anything on our own. We have to partner across every entity and individual. It’s how we are going to move our country in a better, healthier direction.”
Nonprofit leaders across the region agree.
Nkia D. Richardson is executive director of CASA of
Mark Rabinovitz, a retired technology strategist from Boston, has been volunteering for JFCS for more than 20 years.
San Mateo, a nonprofit that ensures children and youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have a caring and consistent adult who mentors them and advocates for needed resources. For her, “the beauty of volunteering is that we can find a way to contribute to our local community, and the larger community, in a way that fits best for each individual. That might be a one-off opportunity, or something over a longer period of time.”
Scotty Kober, who recently stepped down as the longtime executive director for San Francisco Youth Soccer (SFYS), worries that people think “volunteerism is dying,” which might lead folks to a posture of disengagement.
“I dislike the blanket statement of volunteerism being on the decline,” she says, “and prefer the more proactive
Stumping for Daniel Lurie at the Ferry Building Farmers Market.
A tiny free library station attached to a house in San Francisco. (Photo by Vivian Chen)
suggestion that we need to build a culture nationally that encourages involvement vs. throwing money at a club and hoping it all works out.”
While financial support can and should be a critical part of the volunteering infrastructure, many major philanthropists remind us that it’s the connection with real people that solidifies our sense of purpose.
Melinda French Gates, whose philanthropic focus is wide and deep, explained in her book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World that “If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop thinking only in terms of big systems and remember to sit with people, to listen to their fears and hopes. The biggest lift comes from seeing another’s dignity.”
Darren Walker, the outgoing head of the Ford Foundation, who has been animated by a critique of “professional philanthropy,” has called for funders to focus on “attention and solidarity” with those that they support. “We need to be proximate to the people we claim to serve.”
This idea of being “proximate” to communities that are supported, most famously articulated by Bryan Stevenson at the Equal Justice Institute, is at the essence of Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund, or SV2.
SV2, which features a new model of engaging funders, who are called Donor Partners, has distinguished itself through its immersive learning experiences, full integration of community members on its Board of Directors, and an ethos of true collaboration.
“SV2 is all about community,” says SV2’s CEO David Onek. “With all the challenges in the world today, many people are feeling isolated and hopeless. Coming together in community to make positive change is an antidote to that feeling of isolation.”
After a few seasons of assisting JFCS East Bay with their front line food program, I’m looking forward to my next volunteer adventure with them – supporting the staff with expertise from my professional toolkit of organizational storytelling. It turns out that my deeper dive into the economy of food insecurity, undertaken to help expand the possibilities of others, has expanded my own as well. A rising tide of volunteerism raises all boats.
“The Bay Area has a long and proud history of being a community that has answered the call of volunteerism. As far back as 1906, after the San Francisco earthquake, long before modern organized volunteerism existed, the city saw relief volunteer efforts arise and support grow from the dust and rubble of its community after an unfathomable tragedy.”
Experiencing the ocean for the very first time with her CASA volunteer by her side.
Conversations: Grace Fisher
as told to Zachary Bernstein
Meet the Artist
As a teenager raised in Santa Barbara, Grace Fisher was an active student and classicallytrained multi-instrumentalist who excelled at playing piano, cello, and guitar. She dreamt of a future in music performance, but that dream was cut short by a sudden polio-like illness that left her forever paralyzed from the neck down at the age of 17. As devastating as the diagnosis was, this life-altering event did not stop her from fostering a community from the arts and becoming a celebrated artist herself.
She also established the Grace Fisher Foundation, a nonprofit that continues Fisher’s deep commitment to the arts. The foundation provides an arts outlet for people with both physical and intellectual disabilities. At the center of it all is the inclusive Arts Clubhouse, a hub currently housed within La Cumbre Plaza shopping mall that offers free arts classes, performances, and events with programming nearly every day of the week.
You can see Fisher’s own artwork displayed at the Clubhouse and throughout this Giving List book.
The Giving List: You’re contributing artwork for The Giving List book this year. How did you get started as a visual artist?
Grace Fisher: Art was something I really got into shortly after my disability. They introduced me to that when I was in rehab at Craig Hospital. It’s all with a paintbrush attached to a stick that I hold in my mouth. Once I learned, I just got really into it. I wasn’t into art before my disability, so it was a new learning experience and something that I could do despite all my other physical limitations. My style’s evolved. I really like using vivid colors, thick paint application, and experimenting with color and texture. I later took a painting class at City College and that was really helpful, but I’m mostly self-taught, I learn by experience and through making mistakes.
TGL: Your foundation includes a Clubhouse devoted to the arts and you have all these people coming together to
make art. Do you think that communal experience is informing the art that you make?
GF: I think so. The space is a beautiful, inspired place for creativity. The arts were really instrumental to my recovery and my state of mind. I was 17 at the time. That was 10 years ago and we didn’t have a physical facility then, but that was always my ultimate dream. We did community programs and that type of thing before getting our physical space a couple years ago. Now, the Clubhouse brings everyone together all the time.
TGL: Music performance was also a big part of your life. How do you keep music in your life today?
GF: I knew music would always be with me. I studied classical piano, cello, and later guitar. I was active with
music performance, but after I lost my physical abilities, I still had that passion in my heart. It’s just in a different form now. But I also graduated from UCSB with a music composition major and I’ve written pieces for the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra and collaborated with the State Street Ballet Academy. Collaborating with others is so much fun. You wouldn’t be able to do all this in a place other than somewhere like Santa Barbara. It’s a really amazing arts community.
TGL: What prompted you to create your nonprofit, to give back to the community in this specific way?
GF: Music and art gave me a sense of purpose and joy, and after my paralysis, I realized how powerful creativity is in helping people heal, connect, and thrive. I’ve been blessed in my own life with many opportunities in the arts and feel like I have the privilege to be able to now offer similar opportunities to others facing similar challenges. Everyone – whether they have a disability or not – faces challenges
and hardships. But when we gather in an inclusive creative environment, we see our shared humanity, our similarities, and the joy of simply making art side by side.
TGL: In general, how successful do you feel philanthropy is in breaking down barriers for those with disabilities?
GF: Nonprofits that intentionally weave accessibility into their missions play a huge role in shaping a culture that sees inclusion not as an afterthought, but as essential. Disability is something everyone will encounter at some point – whether in their own life or through a loved one. The more exposure we all have to inclusive environments, the more natural it becomes to value difference and belonging.
TGL: What is the role of philanthropy in helping foster community for those with disabilities and fostering understanding, integration, and empowerment?
GF: Philanthropy and nonprofits can help plant the seeds. By supporting programs and spaces that are inclusive, funders are not just helping individuals with disabilities – they are strengthening the whole community. It’s about empowerment, understanding, and ensuring that everyone has the chance to participate fully in life.
TGL: What do you imagine people might not realize about people living with disabilities?
GF: Isolation is a huge problem. It’s a problem for everyone, but especially for people with disabilities. Covid made it worse. There’s a stigma attached to having a disability. After my incident, some of my friends were hesitant to invite me to things. They thought I was still sick and my situation was so severe. They didn’t feel I was capable of doing what they were doing. They’d say, ‘Let’s go visit Gracie,’ but I don’t want people to visit me – I’ve
“Music and art gave me a sense of purpose and joy, and after my paralysis, I realized how powerful creativity is in helping people heal, connect, and thrive.”
grown to hate the word visit – I want to hang out with them and do what they’re doing.
It becomes a thing where, I mean, I have my nurse, my friend, that helps me out, but a lot of times I’ll have her and my parents that help me, but I get sucked into a hole if I’m not careful.
TGL: Where do you see your foundation in five years? What does success look like?
GF: I hope to someday own a building so we can leave a legacy here in Santa Barbara. Perhaps expand our model into other communities. However, true success would be when spaces like ours are no longer the exception but the norm – where people of all abilities can walk into a classroom, studio, or theater and feel welcome.
Advocacy
“When the world is silent even one voice becomes powerful.”
– Malala Yousafzai
We Are Not Powerless
Gun violence. The phrase has become almost blandly ubiquitous in American culture. But to those who have experienced the piercing loss of a loved one to gunfire, to those whose kids’ “active shooter drills” at school have become a familiar part of the curriculum – gun violence is a maddening public health catastrophe that must be contained. On that front, the nonprofit Brady: United Against Gun Violence is a pugnacious, singleminded force for good.
“Brady’s mission statement is to Free America from Gun Violence,” says Julie Hill, director of engagement for Brady United. “As mission statements go, it’s very succinct.” Brady United’s inaugural legislative success – 1993’s hard-fought Brady Bill – established both the first national instant background check system and the five-day waiting period. At this writing, the landmark legislation has shut down nearly 4.9 million prohibited gun transactions.
Today, Brady United is engaged on every legislative and cultural front that bears on the gun control issue, working tirelessly to change the gun laws, the industry, and the culture. It’s worth remembering that Jim and Sarah Brady (who passed in 2014 and 2015, respectively) were themselves gun owners. “A lot of legacy gun owners view gun safety as an essential part of gun ownership,” says Liz Dunning, Brady United’s chief development and engagement officer. “Some of what we’re seeking to accomplish is returning gun ownership to a posture of gun safety and responsibility.”
In that spirit, Brady United is indefatigable – and innovative. In Oakland, Brady Chapter leaders cofounded the Oakland Gun Tracing Group, which advocates for the release of gun trace data to better understand the flow of crime guns. At the government procurement level, Brady leverages ordinary market
Pellie Anderson, a gun safety advocate, former prosecutor and District Attorney, and mom, has been a Brady volunteer and donor since 2019, and is currently a member of the Northern California Regional Leadership Council.
Pellie’s experience as a prosecutor inspired her commitment to gun violence prevention, especially as it pertains to domestic violence and suicide prevention. She appreciates that “Brady really values what people can bring to the table from their community and career.” We are so grateful for Pellie’s dedication to our mission to free America from gun violence.
pressures to incent government agencies’ thorough vetting of vendors when sourcing weapons. Brady has even gone Hollywood – partnering with writers, producers, and studio execs to model responsible gun ownership onscreen. And to date, Brady’s safe home gun storage PSA, End Family Fire, has served 3.6 billion views. Liz Dunning describes the fuel that drives Brady’s successes.
“Eighty percent of our annual revenue comes from individuals, and half of that comes from individuals giving a thousand dollars or less. We know – every day – that we are accountable to a broad swath of people who believe in our mission.” Her colleague Julie Hill concurs.
“We have the wide reach and can go deep enough into the issue to truly tackle these problems. Gifts at any and all levels go a long way to freeing America from gun violence, to keeping us all safe.”
Support Brady to End Gun Violence
Guns are the #1 killer of kids in America. This reality drives Brady: United Against Gun Violence in their tireless work to change the laws, change the industry, and change the culture of guns in the U.S. Show Gun Safety and End Family Fire media campaigns are proving successful in inspiring national behavior changes for safe gun storage and safety.
ALL gifts to Brady help to free America from gun violence. Your investment will work to reduce suicide, school shootings, and domestic violence in our nation. Join them and give today!
President Kris Brown and VP Liz Dunning at the Supreme Court
Brady leader and Parkland survivor Aalayah Eastmond
For the Animals
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
A Lasting Legacy of Compassionate Animal Care
Each year in the U.S., hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs are surrendered to shelters – or tragically euthanized – simply because their families can’t a ord veterinary care. Treatable illnesses or injuries become heartbreaking crises. Without options, families are forced to give up their beloved companions.
That’s where Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society (Berkeley Humane) steps in and their vision to build the new Bay Area Animal Resource Center (BAARC).
For over 130 years, Berkeley Humane has been a beacon of hope in the Bay Area, o ering a second chance to vulnerable animals – many from overcrowded public shelters – who are su ering from broken limbs, dental disease, and other treatable conditions. These animals receive healing, hope, and the chance to find new loving homes.
“Most families can’t a ord $6,000 or $7,000 in medical care upfront. That’s where we come in,” says Executive Director Je rey Zerwekh. “We absorb that financial burden, so every animal has a chance – and every adopter has the opportunity to say yes.”
Berkeley Humane is more than a shelter. With advanced medical care, behavioral support, and a trusted network, they serve animals from over a dozen counties across Northern California and Hawaii. They also provide essential community services, including low-cost spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, pet food, training, end-of-life care, and grief counseling.
Astonishingly, all this work has taken place in a 93-year-old building, much of
Right now, too many pets are losing their lives – not for lack of love, but for lack of access to care. You can change that.
which has been unusable since a devastating fire in 2010.
Now, change is finally here.
BAARC will more than double their capacity for lifesaving surgeries, temporary housing, and preventive care of shelter animals. It will be the region’s most comprehensive, community-centered animal welfare hub – ensuring more pets stay in homes, find homes, and live healthier lives with the people who love them.
“We don’t just help animals,” says Zerwekh. “We support the people who love
them. That’s what this new center makes possible.”
The walls are coming down. What they build in Phase 1 will mean the difference between heartbreak and hope for thousands of pets and the families who cherish them.
With your support, they can give even more animals the second chance they deserve.
They invite you to join them in creating a more compassionate future and help build the new Bay Area Animal Resource Center.
“M addie’s Fund, a national family foundation established by Dave and Cheryl Duffield and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a long-time supporter of Berkeley Humane. We are pleased to be a supporter of the new BAARC facility and to see the expansion of vital community programs knowing that the well-being of pets reflects the well-being of the community.”
–
Mary Ippoliti-Smith Executive Leadership Team at Maddie’s Fund
Building the Bay Area Animal Resource Center
Berkeley Humane is currently building a brighter future for shelter animals. BAARC (Bay Area Animal Resource Center) will be a comprehensive center featuring state-of-the-art veterinary, adoption, training, and education programs for the community. And they need your help to complete this ambitious and transformative center. BAARC will continue to fulfill their promise to find loving homes for 100% of the adoptable animals brought through their doors.
NAMING OPPORTUNITIES
$5,000,000 Legacy Naming Rights
$2,500,000 Vet Clinic or Dog Pavilion
$500,000 Surgery Suite
$250,000 Hospital Exam/Dental Area
$75,000 Food Prep Kitchens
$25,000 Dog Kennels & Cat Condos
GIVING LEVELS
$100,000+ Leadership: Legacy of Love
$10,000+ Pace Setter: Heart of the Shelter
$5,000-$9,999 Patron: Guardian of Love Up to $4,999 Friend – Tail Wagger
Serves the people and animals of our community by providing life-saving programs for cats and dogs, cultivating compassion, and strengthening the human-animal bond.
“ “
Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society
www.berkeleyhumane.org/baarc
Contact: Je rey Zerwekh Executive Director (510) 845-7735 x209 jzerwekh@berkeleyhumane.org By
KEY SUPPORTERS
Isabel Allende
Barry Braden
Jennifer Egan
Fieldwork Brewing
Valerie Hagan Harlan
Ellen Jacobs
Michael Krasny
Lisa Kudrow
Daniel Lang
Maddie’s Fund
Susie Medak & Greg Murphy
Amy Tan
Mary Ellen & Bryant Tong
Dr. Alan Shriro Family
Wareham Development
Greg Murphy
The Many Ways to Give...
or
SAGE COMPASSION FOR ANIMALS
In the San Francisco Bay Area, a family’s love for their pet can be tested by the high cost of veterinary care. Sage Compassion for Animals is a small yet resourceful nonprofit with a big mission: ensure no pet is lost due to financial constraints. “Our mission is providing veterinary care funding for pets in crisis when pet parents can’t afford it,” says Dr. Julie Smith, the organization’s founder and a retired veterinary surgeon. “We help keep pet families together.”
Smith knows the stakes intimately. For more than 25 years she worked in emergency and specialty veterinary medicine, often encountering cases where the outcome could have been excellent –if only the family could pay. “It was really just so frustrating to not be able to offer [care] to everybody who walked in the door,” she recalls. Determined to change that, she launched Sage Compassion for Animals in 2019 with a straightforward and effective model based at the intersection of animal and human welfare: partner with
"Our family chooses to support Sage Compassion for Animals because we believe no one should have to say goodbye to a beloved pet simply because of financial hardship. The bond between people and their animals is profound – it's love, comfort, and family. Everyone at Sage Compassion for Animals understands that, and they work tirelessly to preserve that bond.
"What sets this organization apart is the integrity and compassion of the people behind the mission. Every interaction we've had with their team has been marked by transparency, empathy, and a deep commitment to doing what's right – not just for animals, but for the families who love them. They don’t just offer financial assistance; they offer hope and a lifeline during some of life’s most difficult moments."
local veterinarians, require a 25% discount, use donor funds to close the gap, and save beloved family pets.
One of their earliest cases was Canelo, an eight-month-old puppy whose young owner – a first-generation college student – was battling anxiety during the pandemic and relying on her new companion for comfort. When Canelo developed life-threatening bladder stones, the owner couldn’t afford the surgery. The veterinarian had begun removing items from the estimate to cut costs when Smith stepped in. “Instead of taking things off, just offer the full estimate with a 25% discount,” she told the vet, assuring her that Sage Compassion for Animals would cover the rest. The vet’s relief was palpable: “You’ve made my day being able to do the work I want to do,” she said.
More recently, the organization helped Daisy, the emotional support dog of a woman facing financial elder abuse and cognitive decline. Working with the county’s
Deputy Public Guardian, Smith navigated old medical records, secured fresh tests, and arranged surgery with a specialist. Today, both Daisy and her owner are thriving.
Sage Compassion for Animals has helped more than 450 pets remain with their families, awarding over $1.1 million in veterinary grants – with a remarkable 97% return-to-home rate. They collaborate with over 50 clinics and other partners and focus on urgent cases with a good prognosis, ensuring donor dollars have maximum impact. “We really do rely on that village,” Smith emphasizes.
Sage Compassion for Animals also offers pet wellness educational forums like their “Ask a Vet” sessions at community events, blogs, webinars, and local talks ranging from pet first aid to navigating pet insurance.
Yet in a region where veterinary costs are rising and economic pressures are steep, their safety net has never been more essential.
– The Del Vecchio Family
Sage Compassion for Animals is a nonprofit providing veterinary care funding for pets in crisis – and more!
Your Donation Saves Pet Lives
Your support can make a life-saving difference for pet families in crisis. Consider how far your donation can go:
• $2,500 can save the life of a pet, covering an emergency surgery or critical treatment.
• $5,000 enables Sage Compassion for Animals to fund higher-cost procedures – like an orthopedic fracture repair by a specialist.
With over 90% of each donated dollar going directly to veterinary care, your gift ensures that no qualified pet family is turned away and makes you an important part of the compassionate village keeping pets and their people together.
Sage Compassion for Animals helped Daisy not only to get the surgery to remove the painful tumor in her eye, but also the general care she needed to be healthy and happy!
Sage Compassion for Animals provides financial assistance for veterinary care to help companion animals in crisis and educates communities about ways to prevent and reduce illness.
KEY SUPPORTERS
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Katrina Warburton - Board President
Melissa Hollatz - Board Vice President
Lissa Richardson, DVM, DACVS - Board Secretary
Dennis Ryan - Board Treasurer
Julie D. Smith, DVM, DACVS, CCRT, MBA
Susan Carsen
Stephanie Boldt, AS, RVT, EMT
Stephanie Garcia Gonzales
Renee Fernandez-Lipp, MBA, CEM, LEED AP, GGP
The Many Ways to Give...
Sage Compassion for Animals www.sagec4a.org
Contact: Julie D. Smith, DVM, DACVS, CCRT, MBA
Founder, Board Member (408) 693-0444 jsmith@sagec4a.org
By Check:
Sage Compassion for Animals 650 Castro St. Suite: 120 361 Mountain View, CA 94041
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 84-3076707
By Credit Card: sagec4a.org/donate
One of the first grant recipients, Canelo, was also the family's first dog, so they were not prepared and didn’t understand what was happening when he became ill.
For the Children
“Children are our most valuable resource.”
– Herbert Hoover
When Crisis Comes for a Child
The 14-year-old girl from El Salvador had never been away from home, but Carolina* knew she had to run. The 40-year-old gang member who wanted to marry her had made his threats clear: join him willingly, or watch her siblings su er the consequences. So Carolina left in the darkness, beginning a journey that would take her through the Texas desert, to an Ohio detention center, and eventually to the o ces of Legal Services for Children (LSC) in San Francisco.
Founded in 1975 as one of the first children’s law o ces in the country, LSC operates on a simple but profound principle articulated by Executive Director Cathy Sakimura: “When a child needs a lawyer, it’s already a crisis.” The organization serves over 1,000 youth annually, 98% of whom are children of color, with 60% speaking languages other than English as their primary tongue.
Carolina’s Journey to Safety
At 14, Carolina fled gang threats in El Salvador, traveling alone to the U.S. where she was detained and placed in deportation proceedings. LSC’s attorney-social worker team helped her secure guardianship with her San Francisco cousin, enrolled her in high school and healthcare, arranged trauma therapy, and successfully obtained Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. After two years of comprehensive support, Carolina achieved legal permanent residence and now has the stable foundation she needs to thrive academically and personally.
* Names of clients and some details of their stories have been changed to protect confidentiality.
What distinguishes LSC from other legal aid organizations is its holistic approach. Social workers and attorneys work together as a team and remain with a child throughout their case – for months or years. “We make this very deep investment in each one of our clients, where we work with them as they grow into adults,” Sakimura explains. This isn’t just legal representation; it’s comprehensive advocacy that addresses every aspect of a young person’s life.
The Weight of Complexity
The children who find their way to LSC come with challenging, poignant stories. A background of parental loss, sexual exploitation, abuse. It’s why LSC’s compassionate, dedicated social workers help the children not only begin to heal from the trauma but help them navigate through often overwhelming tasks in their daily lives: accompanying youth to doctor appointments, guiding them through the DMV for a first driver’s license, or sitting in school meetings to advocate for proper language assessments. “If
you don’t have an adult in your life, how do you figure that out?” asks Clinical Director Ron Gutierrez.
LSC’s work spans three critical areas: securing safe homes through guardianship and foster care advocacy, defending against deportation for undocumented youth, and protecting educational access when schools push vulnerable children toward suspension or expulsion. The organization also maintains federal contracts to serve children in immigration detention facilities throughout the Bay Area, providing legal orientation and family reunification services to youth who arrive in the U.S. alone.
Perhaps most remarkably, LSC has not yet had to withdraw from any case despite Federal funding losses – an important achievement in an era when many organizations have been forced to abandon clients mid-process.
LSC’s successful free representation model continues to be about empowering their clients, about involving them in the decisions that impact their lives so they can heal and thrive.
Children shouldn't have to go to court alone. Our clients have their own attorneys and social workers to help them through their legal cases. LSC helps youth seek asylum, find homes with caring adults, navigate foster care, and get needed educational services.
Supporting Young Lives in Crisis
Legal Services for Children’s devoted social workers are the steady presence that many youth have never known. They accompany frightened teenagers to immigration hearings, advocate in school meetings for children with undiagnosed learning disabilities, help young people navigate healthcare systems without parental guidance, and help the healing of trauma.
• A donation of $3,000 covers a full year of social work services for one young person, including crisis intervention, school advocacy, and health care navigation.
• $7,500 provides comprehensive support for a youth in immigration detention, helping them find family members and avoid deportation.
• $15,000 funds social work services for multiple youth throughout their cases, so that no child faces the legal system alone.
Legal Services for Children provides free representation to children and youth who require legal assistance to stabilize their lives and realize their full potential. Through a holistic team approach utilizing legal advocacy and social work services, our goal is to empower clients and actively involve them in the critical decisions that impact their lives. LSC uses this model to achieve safety and stability at home, educational success, and freedom from detention and deportation for our clients.
KEY SUPPORTERS
INDIVIDUALS
Cecily Cameron & Derek Schrier
Dana & Robert Emery
Tara Farnsworth
Susan & Chris Masto
Stephen Melville Sagar, M.D. & Susan A. Semono
MacKenzie Scott
Susan & David Tunnell
FIRMS & COMPANIES
Baker McKenzie
Cooley
Kaiser Permanente
Legal Services for Children lsc-sf.org
870 Market Street, Suite 356 San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 863-3762
Contact: Cathy Sakimura
Executive Director (415) 780-6333 cathy@lsc-sf.org
By Check:
Legal Services For Children, Inc
870 Market Street, Suite 356 San Francisco, CA 94102
Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP
Morgan Lewis
Villarreal Hutner PC
Foundations
Crankstart
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Long Ridge Foundation
Morrison & Foerster Foundation
May & Stanley Smith Charitable Trust
Bernard E. & Alba Witkin
Charitable Foundation
Zellerbach Family Foundation
“ With LSC's support, young people go on to achieve their dreams.
The Unseen Divide: Bridging Gaps in Silicon Valley’s Schools
In the heart of Silicon Valley, students attend well-funded public schools, and yet another story unfolds in those same hallways. Jean Ikeda, former executive director of Mentor Tutor Connection, describes a stark reality: “You’ll have students who have any service at their fingertips – paid tutors, enrichment activities, and so forth –because their parents have the means to provide it, alongside a student who regularly experiences food insecurity.” This profound income disparity, often masked by the region’s overall affluence, creates vastly unequal opportunities and threatens future life success.
This paradox is precisely what Mentor Tutor Connection (MTC) has been addressing for nearly three decades in Los Altos and Mountain View. Founded in 1996, the organization serves students who might otherwise slip through the cracks of affluent school districts, where assumptions about wealth obscure deeper needs.
MTC operates two distinct, vital programs that form a cohesive support system. Its Tutor Program serves 382 K-8 students annually across 15 schools, reaching children who “don’t have the foundational skills that they need to be successful in the next grade,” Ikeda explains. Tutors provide one-on-one support in reading and mathematics, often within classrooms or after-school homework clubs. This early intervention yields tangible results: 91% of tutored students show increased confidence, and 95% of teachers observed academic progress.
MTC’s Mentor Program pairs more than 100 vulnerable high school students attending three high schools with caring adults. These teenagers often face overwhelming circumstances. Frequently, they are the first in their families to learn English, and must juggle homework and an after-school job to help support their family, or care for younger siblings. Mentors provide emotional support and
Our Mentor Program matches volunteer mentors with high-school students. Mentors listen, provide support and encouragement, and guide students with care, helping them build confidence and inspiring hope for a bright future.
guidance, helping students navigate complex life challenges and explore how they can best develop their potential. The program’s impact is remarkable: 100% of mentored students graduate from high school and 100% plan to attend two- or four-year colleges or combine college and work.
Pedro’s story exemplifies this transformation. He arrived from Mexico in sixth grade with limited English. In high school, he was paired with Ken, a retired physician who shared Pedro’s interests in medicine and music. Their relationship, built over coffee conversations and shared experiences, helped Pedro graduate with honors and scholarships to pursue pre-med studies at his university. As Ikeda observes: “For the first time, mentees realize that they’re not stuck in their circumstances, that there are avenues to go beyond that.”
MTC’s effectiveness is rooted in its full integration into its partner schools. This lean organization maximizes impact: 82% of its budget flows directly to programs. With 173 volunteers contributing nearly 8,000 hours annually, MTC serves 483 students across 18 schools, creating deep, meaningful connections that extend far beyond academic support.
Retired Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Leonard Edwards credited MTC's unique approach for the program’s success, stating, “I have evaluated numerous programs to support the youth who appeared in my court, and without a doubt, Mentor Tutor Connection stands out as the best. During my tenure, I have seen this program significantly increase high school graduation rates by focusing on both the emotional and academic needs of students, surpassing any other program I know.”
– Leonard Edwards
Retired Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge
Making Connections Count
Mentor Tutor Connection’s (MTC) numbers speak for themselves: 100% of mentored high-school students graduated, 100% reported their mentors really cared about them, and 100% would recommend MTC to friends.
As MTC expands its services into more local schools, your generous donations can help create lasting change in a young person’s life.
• $800 allows MTC to provide tutoring services for a K-8 student for an entire academic year.
• $1,600 allows MTC to provide mentoring for a high school student for an entire academic year.
• $2,500-$5,000 will help fund activities for mentors and mentees.
“
Our Tutor Program places volunteers as tutors with elementary and middle school students, in classrooms and after-school settings. Tutors support reading, writing, math, and science, providing academic help, encouragement, and guidance, to enhance the learning environment for both students and teachers.
To enhance the academic, social, and emotional growth of students in our community through meaningful connections with adult volunteer mentors and tutors.
“
“My student is amazing. At the beginning of the school year he was not confident with his English but now he's reading Shakespeare in class and quoting from it. I've done some additional reading of A Midsummer Night's Dream with him and he's animated and enjoys the story.”
KEY SUPPORTERS
Concern EAP
Santa Clara County Supervisors, Districts 3 & 5
Quest Foundation
Silicon Valley Partners
Mountain View Los Altos School District
Los Altos School District
Mountain View Whisman School District
Los Altos Mountain View
Community Foundation
Mountain View Voice
Los Altos Town Crier
Skyline Foundation
Mentor Tutor Connection mentortutorconnection.org
(650) 641-2821
Contact: Lisa Peckler Executive Director (650) 641-2821
lisap@mentortutorconnection.org
Rotary Clubs of Mountain View & Los Altos
Kiwanis Clubs of Los Altos & Mountain View
Ross Stores Foundation
TE Connectivity
Sereno Charitable Foundation
Intero Foundation
Susan & Bob Kresek
Debbie & Doug Kundrat
Russ Satake
Chuck and Ilona Lindauer
The Many Ways to Give...
By Check:
Mentor Tutor Connection P.O.Box 391268
Mountain View, CA 94039
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 27-3054503
By Credit Card: mentortutorconnection.org/donate
Being There With Care: Supporting Families in Medical Crisis
When families have a child with a critical illness, not only do they face the medical crisis; they face emotional exhaustion, financial strain, and the overwhelming logistics of maintaining normalcy while their world is turned upside down. There With Care steps in during these moments, o ering practical and compassionate support to help families cope.
Founded in 2005 by Paula DuPré Pesmen, There With Care has an origin story both unexpected and magical. While a producer on the Harry Potter films, Pesmen received a misdirected call from a wish organization that exposed her to the struggles and isolation faced by families in medical crisis. That serendipitous moment sparked the creation of an organization that has become an indispensable lifeline for families navigating critical illness.
“When we came to California, we were really down and broken but still holding onto hope. After months in the hospital, There With Care stepped in. They gave us the gift of their presence, lifted so much of the burden, and became something our family could truly count on. There With Care is there with care, always.”
– Mom, Jessica, with son, Gri n
The Bay Area chapter, launched in 2011, partners with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and UCSF Benio Children’s Hospital San Francisco to serve as a bridge between medical treatment and family stability.
Executive Director of the Bay Area chapter Kathy Hansen Sweeney explains, “We focus on the critical phases of medical crises, providing ongoing support for the entire family, from the child’s diagnosis until discharge or until the child is no longer critically ill.”
While hospitals treat illness, families often struggle with the practical challenges that a medical crisis creates. There With Care compassionately fills this gap by providing food security, transportation assistance, patient and family essentials, and home stability through its network of 450 core volunteers and organizational partners.
The numbers tell a powerful story: for 13 years, There With Care of the Bay Area has supported over 4,300 families, serving up to 650 families annually. What makes their approach so unique is their commitment to supporting the entire family unit, recognizing that when one child is critically ill, everyone in the household is a ected.
Carlos, an 11-year-old boy with a heart condition, was referred to There With Care by their medical social worker, Hannah Bichko . “Carlos arrived at the hospital so critically ill that he was classified as ‘failure to thrive,’”
"The care that families get from There With Care really has an impact on the quality of their lives and therefore on the quality of the children’s lives.” – Dr. Harvey Cohen (pictured here) from Lucile
Bichko says. “During his eight months in the ICU, Carlos faced not only physical challenges, he also struggled with his mental health and began to lose weight rapidly.”
Bichko adds, “They brought meals, snacks, and treats – things that finally motivated Carlos to eat – their small acts have profound impact. Carlos gained the weight he needed to survive a transplant, while his parents found relief from the crushing burden of trying to hold everything together.”
Medical crises ripple through entire households. Parents lose wages to stay bedside at the hospital, siblings feel left behind, and daily necessities become overwhelming obstacles. There With Care’s approach recognizes these realities and meets families with dignity, stability, and compassion.
Community volunteers assembling care bags for families.
Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
Your Gift Eases a Family’s Burden During a Medical Crisis
Your generosity makes a tangible and immediate di erence for a family with a critically ill child. A gift of $3,000 provides three months of support for one family facing the unimaginable challenges of a medical crisis. This contribution assists with food security, reliable transportation to and from treatment, stability in the home, and customized care packages delivered by trained volunteers. On average, families receive support for three months, some families need support for up to a year. Your gift of $3,000 or more, provides care throughout a family’s journey while with There With Care.
The mission of There With Care of the Bay Area is to provide a wide range of meaningful and fundamental services to children and families during the critical phase of a medical crisis. We serve families referred by medical agencies, by building a network of services and people who ease the burden of life's day-to-day obligations with compassion and care.
Kristy Stone, Development Manager (650) 661-7953 | kristy.stone@therewithcare.org
By Check:
There With Care Of The Bay Area
Sobrato Center for Nonprofits
330 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 135
Redwood City, CA 94065
Donation Memo: The Giving List
KEY SUPPORTERS
Stacia and Kevin Wells
Resonance Philanthropies
Foster Family Foundation
The Louis & Gladyce Foster Family Foundation
Quest Foundation
Sandra and Harry Cheung
Younger Family Fund
Bothin Foundation
Archer Family Foundation
Jocelynn and Je Staley
Junior League of Palo Alto • Mid Peninsula
Susan and Riley Bechtel
Chambers Family Foundation
Sheri Sobrato
AU Energy, Loop Neighborhood Markets
Kiwanis Club Foundation of Menlo Park
George and Kerry Bischof
Warren and Mary Lynn Staley
Intero Real Estate Foundation
Christy and Brad Cole
Yael Goshen and Dylan Smith
William and Calla Gri th
Parinaz Mohamadi and Mostafa Ronaghi
Patrick and Kimberly Popovits
Lisa and Matthew Sonsini
Stephanie Breitbard Fine Arts, LLC
Justin Voo
Rosendin Foundation
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 45-3952029
By Credit Card:
https://therewithcare.org/donate-bay-area/
Guests at Be There With Care annual gala
Community Resilience
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
– Coretta Scott King
Conversations: Dick Levy
as told to Zachary Bernstein
A Belief in Community Philanthropy
By all counts, Dick Levy is an American success story. A Cincinnati native, Levy joined Varian Medical Company in Palo Alto as a salesman in 1968, rising up the ranks to become its chairman and CEO, and helping turn the operation into a multibillion-dollar business. Since his retirement in 2005, he’s been active in philanthropy, using his wealth to give back to local organizations. In this interview, he talks about investing in nonprofits, making big improvements for local communities, and the personal rewards of philanthropic giving.
The Giving List: You donate your money to Peninsula Volunteers Inc. (PVI), an organization devoted to providing independence and comfort to seniors toward the end of their lives. Your wife was on the board, then in her own last years before she died, was the kind of person who could have benefited from PVI’s services. Meanwhile, your life’s work was in the field of medical equipment. You must still have some insights about American healthcare that make you want to donate your money to PVI.
Dick Levy: I know a lot about the medical equipment business and I learned some things. The medical business is in a lot of trouble. The costs are high and the quality is not the highest in the world. It’s probably less than a lot of developed countries. The technology is very elegant, but the business is inefficiently expensive. We cure a lot of disease, but at the same time we’re unavailable to a lot of people.
So, I got interested in fixing the health care system. Keep the good things: the wonderful technology, the good cure rates, long life expectancy. How do we get the cost down, get the access up, the convenience up, and get long-term care for our aging population? Those issues are right in the sights of what PVI does, enabling the aging population to live in their home to have a good quality of life for as long as possible.
A lot of the actual healthcare occurs at home and it’s just not as visible to people that this is an issue. It became visible to me because my wife died two years ago from dementia and I took care of her at home. I learned that all the services I needed were there for me, but I had to manage them all independent of each other. I had to manage different specialists in the medical system, people coming in to help my wife get dressed in the morning, and feeding her. An occupational therapist taught me how to get my wife into a car when she could no longer walk. I have the money, resources, and management skills to do that stuff, but most people don’t.
TGL: What’s something that people don’t know about being involved as a philanthropist that they should know?
DL: What a good question. Certain types of philanthropy have more appeal than others. If I were to say, I want to cure cancer, people understand that, it’s tangible. Or if I say I want to put a building up with my name on it in honor of some focus that I’m interested in, people understand that, too. People don’t always understand the less flashy, but very important work that goes on under the radar.
TGL: Your connection to PVI was so organic. What about for people new to philanthropy who want to donate money? Is it as easy as just calling up and saying, “Hey, I want to help out. What can I give you?” And how do you know how much to give?
DL: That’s right. And you’re asking the right question. There’s another place I donate to similar to PVI, a smaller organization. I could give them more than I’m giving them, but they couldn’t absorb it quite the right way. They’re still growing. It’s a new business really. But it is growing and I think it can be a huge opportunity for the community.
I’m a guy who believes in understanding the problem before I work on the solution. That’s always how I’ve approached business. A lot of businesses and organizations operate on not solving a problem, but finding a way to make money by specializing in some mechanical technique, or developing AI just as a resource to solve problems. They don’t even define the problem they want to solve and that’s contrary to the way I think. I want to put my money and energy into organizations that know the problem they’re dealing with.
TGL: At your level of wealth, I imagine you could be a noteworthy donor to national institutions, but you’ve centered your attention on local organizations. Do you think donating locally has a bigger impact?
DL: I lived in an era when we all lived in tightly-knit communities, where everybody knew everybody else, everybody helped everybody else. We’re losing that today. The idea of working your whole life for a single company, as I did, seems to have disappeared and we’re now taking as a common practice the fact that people have to move around from community to community to find jobs. People now think that this is the way it’s always been, or the way it has to be. We’re becoming very impersonal. And I think we can get that sense of community back if we spend more money on philanthropy within the communi-
“We’ve lost the friendships and the company of neighbors where you can walk next door and talk about your problems, that sort of thing. We’re becoming a bunch of strangers to each other. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
ty. I mean, I can give to solving world health problems and things like that. Bill Gates is eradicating malaria; a very good thing. But meanwhile, we have problems right here in the community that we don’t spend as much money on. Most businesses today are global and a lot of them don’t care about their community at all. Some don’t even understand their community. They might have headquarters in one place, but all their workers are somewhere else. So we’ve lost the community spirit. We’ve lost the friendships and the company of neighbors where you can walk next door and talk about your problems, that sort of thing. We’re becoming a bunch of strangers to each other. It doesn’t have to be that way.
TGL: Are you able to see in real time the effects of the money you donate and the time you give?
DL: Yeah, I do. When I give a sizable amount of money to an organization, I usually give them a goal to
accomplish within six months or a year. And if they don’t hit that goal, the money dries up.
I believe in giving philanthropically just like I would make an investment in a business. If it were a business investment, I’d want to see their business plan. I’d want to see the milestones that they’re going to meet in a certain period of time. I’d want to see their budgets and that kind of thing. And I ask the same of the nonprofits that I give to. I want to see some results. I don’t just give a large amount of money and forget about it.
TGL: Are there some organizations that have built up your trust that you feel more comfortable just giving money without outlining goals?
DL: I believe in trust but verify for all organizations worthy of philanthropic support.
TGL: What advice would you have for other people who want to get involved and don’t know where to start?
DL: Look for big problems in our society that aren’t getting solved in the traditional way. There are big problems in the environment. We’re destroying the planet and people should give money to conservation. The seas are getting polluted. A lot of people do give money to cleaning up the oceans. People can’t afford college anymore.
“I lived the American dream. I have kids and grandkids and I have one great-granddaughter. But I think the American dream that I lived is not going to be available to them unless something happens.”
How do you solve that problem? Maybe it’s through scholarships. Maybe it’s through encouraging universities to have intern programs, or do something different to make it more affordable for students.
We, as a nation, give inadequate monies to some of these social issues that need to be solved. And I don’t think that it’s going to be easy to get traditional investors
“Most businesses today are global and a lot of them don’t care about their community at all. Some don’t even understand their community. They might have headquarters in one place, but all their workers are somewhere else. So we’ve lost the community spirit.”
who are driven by just the dollar return on investment. It’s not going to be easy to get their money. It has to come from philanthropists to get it going and prove how necessary it is. And we don’t see enough of that in my view.
TGL: A lot of nonprofit organizations are losing federal funding they could previously rely on. Do you feel a responsibility to step up to fill the void?
DL: I do. More now than ever before. A lot of those cuts are social services. The federal government is putting a lot of money into deportation of immigrants right now. That’s a big expense for solving the immigration problem. And solving that problem is legitimate. But the federal government is not putting money into the infrastructure, or improving the air quality, or water quality, or roads, or bridges. That needs to be done, too. The federal government could do a lot of what philanthropists are going to be required to do, but they’re just not doing it. And when they are doing it, it’s much slower and much more ponderous.
I can’t influence the government to change what they’re doing. Not very quickly anyway. But I can make a real difference in local things.
TGL: Can you talk about the personal rewards of philanthropy? There must be something in it for you as well.
DL: You’re asking terrific questions.
TGL: You’re giving terrific answers.
DL: I don’t need money. I’m perfectly comfortable. I had a good career. I’ve had a good life. I lived the American dream. I have kids and grandkids and I have one great-granddaughter. But I think the American dream that I lived is not going to be available to them unless something happens. They might not be able to afford to buy a house and get married when they get out of college. They might not be able to find a job where they can get lifetime employment. They might not be able to live in a community where everybody supports everybody else. Those are all advantages that I had growing up. It’s a different world now and it’s not going to go backwards to that stage.
What I’m doing is trying to create parts of that world which are based around community services and health care which sort of complement each other to provide a little bit of what I already experienced in my life because I’m worried about my kids and my grandkids.
I also like solving problems. As I mentioned, I like to understand and define problems rather than just work on solutions and wondering what they’ll be applicable to. I enjoy experimenting with different ways of addressing the issue. Solving problems gives me a lot of pleasure.
It also keeps my mind active, and it also keeps me involved with people. They say that socialization is very important in older age, that people who have lots of social contact live longer and have better cognitive skills. I’d like to live longer and have better cognitive skills. And I am associating with a lot of people in solving these problems and these programs that I sponsor. I go and review them in person. I sit down with a team that’s working on it and I hear their reports and I give them suggestions. It makes me feel good to have somebody listen to my wisdom. I get all that for the price of what I give, and it’s worth it.
Building Community, Resilience, and Social Change
The call came on a Tuesday morning in July. Eliana*, 22 and struggling with her homework, learned that her parents would not be coming home from work. ICE had taken her parents and, suddenly, she was the sole guardian to her siblings –Isabel*, 4; Carlos*, 8; and Sofia*, 12, whose growing anxiety kept her awake at night.
“We were living in a constant state of fear,” Eliana recalls, echoing what Laura Valdez, Mission Action’s executive director, describes as the current psychological landscape of immigrant families across San Francisco. Mission Action (formerly known as Dolores Street Community Services) has worked for four decades to create a more just society by nurturing individual wellness while cultivating, as Valdez stresses, collective power among low-income and immigrant communities.
When a frantic Eliana found Mission Action, she discovered an ecosystem of support that understood trauma not as a moment but as a condition requiring sustained, adaptive care. The organization provided transitional housing and food while Eliana navigated her new reality, legal advice for her parents’ case, and mental health crisis support when the weight of responsibility threatened to collapse her world.
Mission Action’s approach – “meeting people where they are at” – has become increasingly vital as federal enforcement intensifies. The organization manages the Rapid Response Network – a 24/7 multilingual hotline operated in collaboration with partner organizations to verify ICE activity and provide support for detainees and their families. But the real innovation lies in the compassion and expansiveness of
their programs: the same organization fields a panicked call about an immigration raid at dawn, stocks a market-style food pantry by afternoon, and opens shelter beds by evening, while case managers coordinate wraparound services that recognize crises as multifaceted.
The demand for their services has “quadrupled” in recent years, Valdez notes, while associated costs have skyrocketed. Mission Action has responded with more nimble, privately funded programming – evidence of an organization adapting its trauma-informed care as rapidly as the crises evolve.
Mission Action now operates multiple shelters, worker collectives that have secured over 4,000 living-wage jobs, the second-largest food program in the city, and legal guidance for asylum seekers with an astonishing 90% win rate.
Today, Eliana’s siblings attend school, their backpacks filled with supplies Mission Action provided. Case managers have helped Eliana find a part-time job and stable housing for the family, while legal partners fight to reunite the family.
The goal, as Valdez explains, remains constant: helping clients achieve independence and self-su ciency while building the collective power necessary to address root causes. For Eliana, that means finishing her degree while her siblings find stability in a city that has learned, through organizations like Mission Action, that home is not a place you return to – it’s a community you build together.
*not their real names
At the heart of this work is a commitment to justice, dignity, and collective power.
Mission Action defends immigrant and low-income communities through legal defense, housing, grassroots organizing, and connections to emergency services.
Mission Action nurtures individual wellness and cultivates collective power among low-income and immigrant communities to create a more just society.
“
Supporting Sanctuary in Action
Mission Action operates on the front lines of the crisis impacting San Francisco’s immigrant communities, providing emergency shelter, legal representation, and economic opportunity to families under siege. Your support enables free legal services to continue for nearly 1,000 clients each year and wraparound support services for 3,000 families, like Eliana’s, annually.
A $5,000 gift could fund legal representation for an entire family facing deportation proceedings, while $10,000 supports emergency shelter services for dozens of individuals each month.
“I applied for asylum alone, feeling terrified. Lawyers were too expensive, and nonprofits had long waitlists. Then I discovered Mission Action workshops, connected with others, and practiced for court. On the hearing day, I stood before the judge and won.” – Katy, asylum seeker and workshop leader
"Ivolunteer with my teenage kids in the family shelter, because we feel uplifted by the joy the children express when we share arts and crafts or games – and the relief we see their parents experience. It is a gift to be able to do one small thing to improve the day of folks who have experienced many hard days – just as it's a gift the way they improve ours!”
– Gail Cornwall-Feeley Mission Action Volunteer
The Many Ways to Give...
Mission Action
www.missionaction.org (415) 282-6209
Contact: Kara Mitzel Director of Development (415) 857-7711
kara.mitzel@missionaction.org
Each year, volunteers distribute 36,000 food boxes and sta prepare 300,000 meals for shelter guests.
Providing Care and Connection for Seniors
PVI's Meals on Wheels deliveries are a true lifeline for homebound seniors, o ering healthy food, peace of mind, and a warm connection.
Peninsula Volunteers, Inc. (PVI) was founded nearly 80 years ago in Menlo Park by a group of forward-thinking women in the spirit of giving back to the community. The members quickly recognized an urgent need for their help: seniors. PVI is redefining what it means to be a senior in society. They are empowering this long-ignored segment of the community through care and connection and helping them stay vibrant by enabling seniors to age in place in the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley.
According to Peter Olson, PVI’s longtime CEO/executive director, “Seniors live longer, happier, and more fulfilled lives when they are able to stay in their own homes. Access to our life-a rming programs and services make this possible.” PVI is creating a future where seniors can age in place surrounded by the support and services they need to thrive without the negative health impacts of hunger, loneliness, and isolation.
To spotlight the crisis facing seniors, the U.S. Attorney General identified loneliness as an epidemic. San Mateo County declared it a public health crisis in January 2024, and PVI is working with Supervisor David Canepa, who is championing this issue.
In 1949, PVI launched Little House, the first suburban
States. It became the model for senior centers that followed. In the ‘70s, they opened Rosener House, an award-winning facility for seniors with cognitive issues like Alzheimer’s and dementia, paving the way for addressing senior health issues that weren’t openly discussed.
The organization’s work helps seniors stay healthy and retain independence and social connection through core o erings. Addressing nutrition and food security
needs, PVI’s Nutrition Services/Meals on Wheels program delivers meals from their commercial kitchen to homebound seniors and adults with disabilities. Their “Got Groceries?” program has provided over 50,000 pounds of food to more than 500 families monthly, helping with financial shortfalls and essential needs. RIDE PVI helps preserve independence by providing transportation services for non-driving older adults.
Their Rosalyn G. Morris Activity Center and Adult Day Services at Rosener House provide supportive environments for aging members of the Peninsula to thrive. PVI also battles senior social isolation. “I cannot tell you how many people have said, ‘This organization has saved my life,’” Olson emphasizes.
PVI launched Quiescence – Customized Solutions for Family Caregivers, a concierge service for caregivers, providing a dedicated assistant to manage medicine, appointments, and related needs.
Today, PVI serves over 6,000 households annually through its core programs in the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley, impacting over 400,000 families.
PVI’s goal remains to provide seniors with supportive and compassionate care options, giving them the opportunity to age in place.
“PVI is an extraordinary organization that I am honored to serve and support. Aging can be so challenging with declining health and memory and nutrition issues. PVI empowers seniors and their families with essential programs and activities that enhance their daily lives and independence. Leadership, sta , and volunteers are outstanding, with enormous hearts and dedication to positively impacting the way seniors are cared for today and in the years ahead.”
– Susan Martin CFO
Harvard Investment Company, PVI Board Member, and Fall Event Chair
senior center in the United
Help Seniors Age in Place
• $500 – Funds one month of Peninsula Volunteers, Inc.’s (PVI) nutritious Meals on Wheels for two at-risk older adults.
• $700 – Funds one week of Adult Day Services for Alzheimer’s at Rosener House.
• $1,200 – Funds a full year premium membership at PVI’s Adult Activity Center at Little House.
• $2,500 – Funds a new iPad and training for a senior to access the internet and help prevent social isolation.
Peninsula Volunteers, Inc. 1pvi.org (650) 326-0665
Enable seniors to age in place. “ “
Coming together for the Lunar New Year celebration at PVI’s Senior Activity Center, which is one of many opportunities for the senior community to engage with others, overcome loneliness, and enjoy fresh, nutritious food and entertainment.
KEY SUPPORTERS
Ann Gri ths
Anne Melbye
Barbara and Arnold Silverman
Carolyn and Preston Butcher
Dick Levy
Dignity Health
George Weikart Trust
Howard and Betty White Foundation
Hurlbut-Johnson Charitable Trusts
Jeanne and Frank Fischer
Kaiser Permanente
Marylue Timpson
Meta Platforms, Inc.
Contact: Lisa Murphy Director of Philanthropy (650) 272-5009 lmurphy@1pvi.org By
NTT Global Networks
NTTVC Regalis Networks
Peninsula Healthcare District
Sequoia Healthcare District
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Susan Martin
Sutter Health/Palo Alto
Medical Foundation
The Gidaro Family
The Kerfu e Foundation
The Morris Family
Troper-Wojcicki Foundation
Woodlawn Foundation
The Many Ways to Give...
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 94-1294939
By Credit Card: 1pvi.org/donate
Memo: The Giving List
Seated stretches and shared joy, a PVI moment full of movement and fun.
PVI's chair volleyball keeps seniors active, engaged, and smiling!
The Fight for Housing Justice
Celebrating 10 years of SFCLT’s Pigeon Palace property! Residents, neighbors, and friends gathered to unveil a stunning new mural, honoring the artists, historians, and activists who call this community-owned home a beacon of creativity and resistance to displacement in San Francisco.
"S
upporting San Francisco
Community Land Trust is one of the most impactful ways we can invest in people and neighborhoods. SFCLT helps residents not only stay in their homes, but also gain a voice and a stake in shaping their community’s future. Their work is a powerful reminder that when we center people, we build lasting stability, dignity, and belonging in the Bay Area."
– Preston Kilgore SFCLT Board Member and Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee
Since 2019, the cost of living in the city by the Bay has skyrocketed by 54%, forcing teachers, essential workers, and longtime residents to abandon the communities they love. The San Francisco Community Land Trust (SFCLT) is battling back to make living in the city possible once again. Under the leadership of Executive Director Saki Bailey, this innovative organization is reimagining how we approach affordable housing – as a permanent solution rooted in community empowerment.
“We focus on immediate solutions rather than relying solely on market-rate housing development,” Bailey explains. “SFCLT operates differently from traditional agencies and involves community members in the development process.” SFCLT doesn’t just preserve affordable housing; guided by the principles of anti-displacement and racial justice, it empowers residents to become advocates for their own communities. This approach has already transformed lives across 16 properties in their growing portfolio.
Patricia, a long-time resident of Russian Hill, was facing insurmountable obstacles at her home before SFCLT’s intervention. When her rent-controlled building was put on the market, Patricia and her neighbors faced the threat of eviction. Through the collaborative work of the SF AntiDisplacement Coalition and residents, SFCLT acquired this century-old architectural treasure to ensure permanent affordability, providing tenants safety, stability, and the opportunity to thrive.
Similarly, Luis, a Latino resident in the Mission District, organized his entire building when their corporate owner refused to make needed repairs. Upon learning about the CLT model, Luis and his neighbors felt empowered with a long-term solution. In 2024, they scored a major victory when SFCLT accessed an innovative regional fund to acquire the building. “We serve as a first line of defense against housing crises, providing immediate solutions for vulnerable tenants,” Bailey notes.
Bailey’s 15-year career in nonprofit work and community land trusts has shown her how speculative real estate practices undermine the American dream of homeownership. “These practices are particularly devastating in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the United States, where global real estate companies invest heavily in the Bay Area’s housing market,” she observes. By leveraging both public and private resources, SFCLT creates housing that is truly community centered.
The crisis extends far beyond housing costs. When teachers, firefighters, and other essential workers can no longer afford to live in the communities they serve, the entire social fabric can unravel. Local businesses lose customers, schools lose experienced educators, and neighborhoods lose their cultural identity.
Of the myriad problems demanding our charity donations in today’s fraught environment, it’s hard to wage any battle without a home, Bailey observes.
Help Keep Housing Affordable for the City’s Most Vulnerable
Sustainable change requires ongoing community investment, so your support is more essential than ever. At the San Francisco Community Land Trust, every contribution directly strengthens the stability, dignity, and future of their residents. Your generosity helps neighbors stay rooted in the communities they call home.
A gift of $5,000, for instance, covers up to three months of rent, ensuring that a resident weathers hardship without facing the devastating reality of eviction or displacement. A donation of real estate ensures that homes in San Francisco remain accessible not just today, but for generations to come. It’s one of the most powerful ways to create a legacy of equity and belonging.
SFCLT’s mission is to fight the displacement of low- and moderate-income San Franciscans by creating permanently affordable housing that is resident-owned and controlled. SFCLT envisions a future where housing is treated not as a commodity but as a human right, and communities hold collective power over land and housing.
SFCLT stewards 16 properties across San Francisco, providing stable, thriving communities where future generations can grow and flourish. SFCLT residents make an average of 55% of the area's median income; 70% identify as BIPOC.
SFCLT Executive Director Saki Bailey joins city leaders, partners, and residents to cut the ribbon at 1130 Filbert Street, celebrating the residents who drove its transition to permanently affordable, community-owned housing.
FRIENDS OF SFCLT
KEY SUPPORTERS
MacKenzie Scott
San Francisco Foundation
Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
Common Counsel Foundation
First Citizens Bank
BOARD
Beth Abdallah, SFCLT Resident
Chris Carlsson, SFCLT Resident
Patricia de Larios, SFCLT Resident
Shayna Leibowitz, SFCLT Resident
Keegan Marling, SFCLT Resident
Vinita Goyal, General Member
Kelly Groth, General Member
Francesca Manning, General Member
Shelah Moody, General Member
Hope Williams, General Member
Preston Kilgore, Public Representative
Zia MacWilliams, Public Representative
Dom Refuerzo, Public Representative
Christopher Renfro, Public Representative
Shanti Singh, Public Representative
The Many Ways to Give...
San Francisco Community Land Trust www.sfclt.org (415) 399-0943
Contact: Saki Bailey Executive Director (415) 850-6031 sbailey@sfclt.org
By Check: San Francisco Community Land Trust 44 Page Street, Suite 503 San Francisco, CA 94102
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 11-3700403
By Credit Card: www.sfclt.org
Education
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
– Nelson Mandela
Shaping Young Writers Through Teacher Learning and Leadership
The National Writing Project (NWP) operates as the nation’s largest network of teacher-leaders focused on writing, with 150 universitybased sites across the United States reaching six million students annually. These sites serve local schools from kindergarten through college. Central to NWP’s work are Invitational Institutes: intensive programs where teachers write daily, discuss research, and present successful practices. “We lift up the practice of already successful teachers to help them articulate what it is that they do with kids that works and why it works,” says Tanya Baker, the organization’s executive director. Participants then lead youth writing camps, as well as workshops and professional development for other teachers, creating “communities of practice where teachers help each other get better at teaching writing.”
And the ripple e ect is powerful. Recognizing that the role of writing is profound in young lives and finding e ective ways to teach writing is transformative. “Writing is an essential way we communicate with each other
now more than ever because of digital technologies,” Baker notes. But teaching it is complex. A classroom teacher makes as many decisions daily as an air tra c controller, managing diverse students’ needs while guiding them to develop voice, purpose, and critical thinking as well as clear sentences and correct spelling. NWP equips educators to navigate these challenges, helping kids produce meaningful work amid challenges like the arrival of generative AI.
A well-equipped teacher is a successful and satisfied teacher, an outcome that is more important today than ever. In 1987, the modal number of teaching years of American teachers was 15; this year it is one. But teachers in NWP’s network stay in education longer. According to one study over 90% of participants in the Invitational Institute stay in the classroom for their whole career. In the words of one teacher, “The National Writing Project changed my life. I wouldn’t be a teacher today without it.” One powerful way to rebuild the American teaching force is to invest in the National Writing Project.
In the Bay Area and beyond, NWP’s work with teachers empowers young people to become critical thinkers and confident creators. As digital tools evolve, NWP ensures writing remains a vital skill, taught by inspired educators who see its power to change lives.
"The Writing Project changed the direction of my teaching career. I wouldn't be the teacher I am today without the connections I made and the growth I experienced through the NWP."
– Ashley Yap
National Writing Project is the nation’s largest network of teacher-leaders, K through university and across the curriculum, working together through local Writing Project sites to improve the teaching of writing in schools and communities nationwide.
Invest in Tomorrow’s Writers by Investing in their Teachers
Support a new teacher’s journey to inspire young writers: $4,000 funds a full-year fellowship, including Summer Institute tuition, a stipend for study, and coursework. In 2020-21, this backed 94 early-career educators – 47% Black or Latinx in underserved schools – resulting in 100% retention and enhanced community literacy programs. Scale your impact: $8,000 empowers two teachers, $64,000 a cohort of 16. Your contribution builds resilient classrooms where students become confident communicators.
"I seek out the Writing Project to be surrounded by educators who expand my thinking in profound ways. Together, we imagine and re-imagine worlds that are spaces where all people thrive. These bright visions of our future are the reason why I teach."
In Writing Project classrooms, writing is buzzing with life, driven by what students actually care about and what touches their daily experience.
National Writing Project nwp.org (510) 859-7305
Contact: Tanya Baker Director (510) 859-7305 tbaker@nwp.org By Check:
The National Writing Project (NWP) focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained e orts to improve writing and learning for all learners.
“ “
The Many Ways to Give...
Making College Possible One Application at a Time
Being the first in your family to attend college is a remarkable achievement, but one that also comes with a lot of other challenging “firsts.” Many of these hurdles start even before a student sets foot on campus.
According to the American School Counselor Association, the average California high school o ers only one counselor for every 464 students, making the road to college feel overwhelming and confusing, especially for those who are the first in their family to pursue higher education.
Enter ScholarMatch. Founded in San Francisco 15 years ago by author Dave Eggers, this education nonprofit started as a crowdfunding platform for scholarships. It was an innovative idea that aimed to address financial barriers to college, particularly among first-generation students from low-income backgrounds.
The approach was a logical first step, but as Julie Angulo, ScholarMatch’s director of development, put it, they “realized that just giving out money in a silo simply isn’t enough. Students needed money and support.”
The organization quickly realized that for students to succeed, it needed to meet students where they are in their process. This led them to pivot from a simple provider of scholarship funds to a comprehensive, seven-year continuum of services designed to support students all the way through graduation.
ScholarMatch services include financial support, individualized guidance from mentors, and access to multiple tools and resources that help students stay on track. But the secret sauce, it turned out, was not the financial support but the human connection that helps students feel seen, heard, and encouraged to break barriers.
The ScholarMatch program begins in 11th grade, pairing each student with a volunteer college coach to work one-onone on applications, essays, and financial aid requirements. The coaching continues through college with trained advisors and career mentors as students approach graduation.
This human connection helps ease the self-doubt and imposter syndrome that many first-generation students experience when embarking on a college journey away from home. When one student, Salvador, was told by a university peer that he didn’t belong, his ability to lean on his ScholarMatch advisor prevented him from giving up.
Another student, Cely, who was working full-time while also attending college, started to see her grades slip and was placed on academic probation. She considered dropping out, but her advisor’s guidance encouraged her not only to keep going and graduate from college but also to pursue a master’s degree.
Stories like these demonstrate how the holistic support of the ScholarMatch programs helps students succeed in college and beyond. And their approach yields powerful results. While the average national college graduation rate for first-generation students remains significantly lower at 24 percent, ScholarMatch sees results almost four times higher, with 80 percent of ScholarMatch students graduating within five years.
Looking ahead, ScholarMatch is scaling its program to maintain a national presence and reach more students in college deserts, such as the Southeast Los Angeles area and rural areas with limited college access services.
ScholarMatch's Executive Director Karla V. Salazar welcomes a new student into ScholarMatch's Scholars Program.
Making College Possible
ScholarMatch invites individuals to learn more about its program and how mentorship, personalized guidance, and community support can help increase the national graduation rate for first-generation students from low-income backgrounds. Your donation to ScholarMatch translates into advising services and scholarships while also connecting students to a caring, supportive community dedicated to student success year-round.
“T
his work has the power to change lives!”
– Louise Rush Local 2 / Hospitality Industry Child & Elder Care Plan’s Program Director and ScholarMatch’s scholarship partner.
ScholarMatch’s mission is to support underserved first-generation college students from low-income backgrounds to earn a bachelor’s degree within five years. Leveraging over 500 intergenerational mentors, ScholarMatch provides virtual individualized advising, targeted financial support, and career mentoring all the way to graduation.
The Many Ways to Give...
ScholarMatch scholarmatch.org (415) 652-2766
Contact: Julie Angulo Director of Development (510) 877-3298
julie.angulo@scholarmatch.org
Author and founder Dave Eggers (left center) with the ScholarMatch Board of Directors (Julie Huang, Heather McCarty, Steve Bennet, and Brandon Wong) and Executive Director (Karla V. Salazar, right center) at the organization’s annual Trivia Night fundraiser.
Where Innovation Is a Family Affair
In 2014, East Palo Alto sat in the shadow of Silicon Valley’s giants – Facebook, Google, Stanford – yet thousands of local families had no computers or internet access. StreetCode Academy was founded to bridge that divide. Co-founder Olatunde Sobomehin vowed to “Motown the industry,” adding the community’s own flavor and culture to tech education. What began as a free coding bootcamp for teens quickly evolved into something much broader. Younger siblings, parents, even elders joined in.
Sobomehin’s nine-year-old son was one of the first to cross that threshold. Two years later, he had built a mobile game that amassed 15,000 downloads and drew the attention of Mark Zuckerberg and a Saudi prince. At the other end of the spectrum, retirees in their seventies and eighties were learning to code alongside him. This intergenerational spirit shaped StreetCode’s philosophy: “Instead of just teaching in a school classroom, we teach whole families in a community-based setting,” Sobomehin explains.
Their model, which focuses on mindset (building awareness of tech), skills (teaching the decoding of the language of tech and business), and access (providing necessary equipment) has successfully proven to bridge the gap between
Today, the organization is on the cutting edge of a new frontier: Artificial Intelligence. One corporate foundation leader asked, “What are we doing to rethink an education that will prepare our young people and adults for the AI future?” StreetCode is answering with free, community-based AI literacy programs. The urgency is real. A 92-year-old recently sought StreetCode’s help in using ChatGPT to interpret his medical records – a reminder that technology is no longer optional, it is essential.
StreetCode’s approach – meeting students where they are, from school classrooms to pop-up tech fairs – has changed lives. Nelson, once a disengaged high schooler, discovered coding at a StreetCode summer bootcamp. He went on to study computer science at Howard University, then became an Infrastructure Engineer at JP Morgan Chase, occasionally returns to StreeetCode Academy to teach the next generation. Max, a first-generation Mexican American, joined in eighth grade, devoured every course, and by junior year was teaching at StreetCode. Today, he is a senior at UC Berkeley, still giving back as an instructor.
For years, StreetCode has operated nomadically – in borrowed classrooms and corporate labs. Now, they are building a permanent home: the Innovation Center. This new facility will quadruple StreetCode’s capacity, anchoring its family-based model in a lasting space where grandparents and grandchildren alike can learn side by side. Imagine evenings where a grandmother codes, teens build apps, and parents explore AI for their small businesses – all under one roof. That’s the vision: inclusive innovation, rooted in community, free, and open to all.
“I love that StreetCode Instructors spent the time to help me understand coding concepts. I remember struggling and not knowing anything. I had taken classes before coming to StreetCode but having the additional oneon-one support made it click.”
– Nelson Koskela StreetCode Academy Student and Volunteer
StreetCode Academy’s Who’s Next Tour brought VR, AR, and AI experiences into Shoe Palace retail stores across the country. By meeting students where they are.
Help Future-Proof Our Communities
StreetCode Academy is raising $250,000 to support its new StreetCode Innovation Pods, a permanent space that will quadruple its reach. The center, a community hub, directly addresses the overwhelming need to ensure families across generations gain AI literacy and tech access. In addition to the capital campaign, StreetCode serves over 4,000 students and your support can spark the next breakthrough.
• $500 Supports one student’s year of free classes and mentorship.
• $2,500 Sponsors an entire workshop series.
• $5,000 Equips 15 students with laptops and internet for a year.
Together, we can open the doors to a future where innovation belongs to everyone.
StreetCode Academy’s mission is to empower communities of color to achieve their full potential by introducing the mindsets, skills, and access needed to embrace tech and innovation.
StreetCode Academy streetcode.org (650) 485-1413
Quincy Sanders
Manager (650) 613-1539 quincy@streetcode.org
The Many Ways to Give...
Lightbox featuring StreetCode Academy’s programming ethos, created by a student in their Family Engineering makerspace class.
Retain the Teachers, Serve the Students
Who among us doesn’t have a cherished memory of a stellar teacher who made a crucial, lasting impact on our lives or our children’s lives? Teachers shape futures. But today, California’s public schools face a growing mental health and sta ng crisis that’s pushing educators out of the classroom before they can make that lasting impact.
Teacher shortages lead directly to increased class size, ill-prepared substitutes being hired, expanded inequality among disadvantaged students, and young lives missing out. What is the leading cause of the retention crisis? Chronic stress and teacher burnout. Not only are teachers leaving the most underrepresented and underfunded schools, they are leaving the profession altogether. In fact, 73% of teachers report frequent job-related stress, and 59% experience burnout. Alarmingly, 90% see burnout as a serious issue, and 1 out of every 3 teachers plan to leave by year’s end.
The overarching crises in education centers around chronic absenteeism, kids not coming to schools, and students not excelling academically. “We see a
direct correlation between our student outcomes and teacher retention,” says Lindsey Fuller, The Teaching Well’s Executive Director. “Educators were once staples of our communities – but today, many don’t stay in the classroom long enough to retire. This revolving door not only disrupts student growth, it makes our communities less cohesive.”
This is where The Teaching Well comes in. Currently operating in 24 states, but based in and largely serving Oakland, The Teaching Well is devoted to providing educators with the socio-emotional and mental health support they need to thrive in an often challenging, underfunded school environment.
The Teaching Well o ers educators a range of services on the individual, interpersonal, and systemic levels – from clinical therapy to professional development and strategic planning. These retention and wellness services foster healthy ecosystems where educators remain, students succeed, and communities grow stronger.
Like everyone on The Teaching Well team, Fuller is also an educator, as well as
the daughter of two teachers and a mother of three students. She’s been able to see firsthand the evolution of the teaching profession through a generational lens.
“My mother retired after 42 years as a teacher,” says Fuller. “It was a point of dignity for my mom.” But the job of being a teacher, a job that’s often considered both one of the hardest and one of the most important, is at risk of losing the very people who would normally shine in that role due to chronic stress and lack of institutional financial support.
We ask a lot of our teachers. With often minimal resources and in sometimes maximally di cult situations, we entrust our most beloved treasures to them – our children. The Teaching Well empowers them with the sustaining support, resources, and programs they need and deserve.
Their model is working. The Teaching Well, for the 3rd consecutive year, retained 85% of educators, compared to the national average of 71% in high poverty schools. The Teaching Well knows that taking care of educators means taking care of students, which leads to thriving communities.
The Teaching Well team is made up of 100% former teachers, school leaders, and district administrators.
Help Replenish The Well
Since its inception in 2019, The Teaching Well has been an integral part of fixing the educator sta ng crisis. $5K o ers a sta retreat to burntout educators, $10K is whole sta professional development for a school year, and $50,000 provides every sta member in a school with mental health and sustainability supports. The Teaching Well is also seeking monthly donors of all sizes to ensure that services for educators can be provided on a continual basis, with the average gift of $80/month.
To
The Teaching Well www.theteachingwell.org (213) 340-4832
Contact: Marisol Pineda Conde Deputy Director (213) 340-4832
marisolpinedaconde@theteachingwell.org
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Margulf Foundation
Koshland Foundation
William H. Donner Foundation
Meyer Memorial Trust
Oregon Wellbeing Trust
The Many Ways to Give...
73% of teachers report high job-related stress which leads to burn out. The Teaching Well o ers workshops that help to reduce stress and retain our valuable teacher workforce.
Family Well-Being
“The family is not an important thing, it’s everything.”
– Michael J. Fox
Conversations: Meghan Crowell
as told to The Giving List Staff
The Importance of Community Building
Meghan Crowell is that standout volunteer who is bursting with passion and buoyancy. She embodies the motto “Service above self.” She is driven by the simple but powerful desire to do “what she can” to help “whom she can” as “often as she can.” Trained as a lawyer in the United States and London, Crowell chose to work for judges rather than practice law with clients. Landing here in the States, Crowell immediately set about building a vast community of nonprofit involvement – from leadership to advocacy to board service.
She currently serves as a trustee of the Episcopal Day School of St. Matthew, where she chairs the Risk Management and Head of School Evaluation Committees, and she serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Help A Mother Out, guiding legal advocacy and policy initiatives to address diaper need for families across the Bay Area. She has also recently been named to serve on the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women. She is a former commissioner on the City of San Mateo’s Community Relations Commission, where she provided oversight for federal grant programs supporting housing, public services, and community development.
Previously, Meghan served as president of the Hillsborough Auxiliary to Peninsula Family Service and the Burlingame Parents’ Club, leading major fundraising and community-building efforts. She is also the co-founder of Conservingnow.com, an environmental education organization dedicated to raising awareness and inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards.
Meghan holds a BA from St. Mary’s College of California, a JD from Golden Gate University School of Law, an LLM from Queen Mary University of London, and an MA from City St. George’s, University of London.
The Giving List: How did your background in law prompt your deep commitment to volunteering?
Meghan Crowell: I come from a family of lawyers, so it probably wasn’t surprising that I studied law. But while I did work as a staff attorney for both state and federal judges, I never went into private practice. I saw firsthand what life in a law firm looked like and knew it wasn’t for me. What really drew me to law was the idea of helping people, especially women. My academic background reflects that. I have multiple degrees, including a master’s in law, and all of them connect back to women’s studies – whether it’s international women’s issues or women in banking.
When my family moved back to the United States after years in London, I had my son. I wanted to be
home with him, but I also wanted to be engaged with my community. That’s when I started seeking out opportunities to volunteer and give back.
TGL: You’ve volunteered with organizations from the Burlingame Mothers’ Club to Help a Mother Out to the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women. What connects these experiences for you?
MC: The common thread is uplifting women and families. There is just so much to be done. Take Help a Mother Out, for example. On the surface, it’s about distributing diapers, something very basic. But those diapers open doors. They allow parents to send their kids to daycare, which means they can go to work or school. It’s not just a package of diapers – it’s opportunity, stability, and dignity.
The same is true with There With Care, an organization I’ve been deeply involved with. They provide groceries, diapers, and other essentials to families with children in the hospital. It may sound simple, but those basics can be the difference between coping and collapsing. When your child is ill, knowing your family will be fed and cared for eases a tremendous burden. For me, it all comes down to seeing needs in my community and finding practical, compassionate ways to meet them.
TGL: What do you think are the biggest challenges in advancing gender equity in philanthropy?
MC: I think one challenge is cultural bias. In my master’s programs, I studied women in banking and microfinance. The data is clear: when women receive microloans, they reinvest in their families and communities, creating ripple effects of growth and support. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to spend in ways that don’t extend beyond their immediate household. So when you help women, you’re really helping entire communities.
But there’s still a bias in how philanthropic dollars are distributed. So few go to women-focused organizations. Part of that may be perception. Diapers, for example, aren’t glamorous. They don’t sound like “big impact” philanthropy compared to something like a research lab or a new building. But if you dig deeper, you see that meeting these basic needs has enormous consequences.
TGL: So what can philanthropy be doing better for women and families?
MC: Education is key. People need to understand the domino effect of meeting basic needs. Take the daycare example: without diapers, you can’t enroll your child. Without daycare, you can’t hold a job. That one small barrier locks families into cycles of instability.
We as advocates have a responsibility to show donors and decision-makers why these needs matter. There’s no government safety net for items like diapers. So it’s on communities and organizations to step up. If more people understood the bigger picture – how basics like food, shelter, and childcare open doors to everything else – I think priorities might shift.
TGL: You often speak about the importance of community building. How do you see philanthropy playing into that?
MC: Philanthropy brings people together in remarkable ways. It creates layers of connection: you join a community of volunteers, you serve the community itself, and the result is a stronger, healthier community overall. I first experienced this with the Burlingame Mothers’ Club. I had just had my son and was looking for other mothers to connect with. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself, and I found that through volunteering. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a new mom – I was part of a network of people working together to make life better for one another. That feeling of “we’re all in this together” is incredibly powerful.
TGL: You’ve also worked with organizations like Samaritan House, CORA, and PARCA. What inspires you to give your time to these efforts?
MC: Honestly, it’s the recognition of how hard life already is. Parenting is difficult even when you have every resource. Now imagine doing it in poverty, or
“Philanthropy brings people together in remarkable ways. It creates layers of connection: you join a community of volunteers, you serve the community itself, and the result is a stronger, healthier community overall.”
while fleeing an abusive relationship, or without access to housing.
For instance, Samaritan House provides housing support, food, school supplies, and more. I think about something as simple as a backpack. A child who shows up to school without one immediately feels different, left out. But give that same child a new backpack and they walk in with confidence. It’s a small gesture, but it changes how that child sees themselves and how others see them.
As a mother and community member, I feel a responsibility to help others, especially those who may not have the resources and opportunities they need to provide a good life for their family.
TGL: Has this work influenced your son’s perspective?
MC: Definitely. My son just turned 16, and though he’s always managed a heavy load with school and sports, he’s been part of this journey for most of his life. We’ve volunteered together at There With Care every month for the past seven or eight years. He’s helped pack groceries, deliver supplies, and meet families face to face.
Making these deliveries has helped him discover how good it feels to make a positive difference in someone else’s life. It has really grounded him to realize that there are people in our community who need help, and that he has the power to step in and make a difference. I love that as he is looking towards his future, he will continue to see philanthropy and volunteering as an important value.
TGL: What advice would you give to someone just starting out in philanthropy or volunteering?
MC: Dive in. Truly, just start. You’ll never regret the time you give.
That said, I think it’s important to find an area that resonates with you. Volunteering should feel meaningful, not like a chore. Do some research, explore organizations, and see what speaks to you. I’ve even cold-called organizations to ask how I could help. I’ve never been turned down, and every time I walked away grateful for the experience.
Your time is precious. Spend it where your passion
lies, and you’ll not only give more – you’ll gain more.
TGL: And what’s next for you?
MC: I recently joined the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women, which has been eye-opening and inspiring. The commission connects with so many organizations, so I’m constantly learning more about what’s happening in our community and where support is most needed.
Looking ahead, I want to keep deepening those connections, continuing to support the organizations I’m already involved with, and maybe finding new ones where I can contribute. For me, it’s about consistency – showing up again and again, because that’s how you build trust and lasting impact.
HELP A MOTHER OUT
The Silent Shame of Diaper Need
In March 2009, Lisa Truong was nursing her nine-month-old baby while her three-year-old toddler napped when an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show changed her life’s trajectory. The program featured California families newly homeless from the Great Recession. As it concluded, Oprah issued a simple challenge: «Everybody can do something.» Truong felt that call deeply.
With her friend, Rachel Fudge, they reached out to social service agencies with plans to organize a clothing drive where Truong learned about a startling safety net gap: warehouses were overflowing with clothes and donated toys, but there were virtually no diapers. And yet, diapers are consistently the most requested item for vulnerable families.
Sixteen years later, Help a Mother Out has distributed over 75 million diapers to families, but the problem has only intensified. “It is a silent public health issue,” she explains. “You’re not going to be driving down the street and see babies needing diapers the way you might see homeless encampments. You can visually see that symptom of societal support breaking down, but with diaper need, it’s more of an invisible crisis.”
“One in three families can’t a ord diapers. Help a Mother Out transforms shame into dignity, having distributed 75 million diapers since 2009 and proving hidden struggles deserve visible solutions.”
– Lisa Truong Executive Director and Founder
Social workers confide that mothers can be reluctant to ask for help because “admitting that you don’t have enough diapers” carries shame and fear in having their children removed from their home. This fear drives desperate measures: mothers giving their babies less to drink to reduce diaper changes, skipping meals to a ord diapers, and in extreme cases, as one mother from East Oakland told Truong, contemplating prostitution. “You have no idea what these diapers mean to me,” the woman said. “If I didn’t have these diapers, I would probably be out on the street selling my body to support my child.”
The math is sobering. With diapers costing between $90 and $135 monthly –a 48% increase since 2020 – and federal assistance programs like food stamps and WIC excluding diapers, over 300,000 California babies live in households that struggle to a ord this basic necessity. In the Bay Area alone, Truong estimates
50,000 children could benefit from diaper support.
To address growing demand amid shrinking resources – reductions in state funding halved the organization’s budget in three years – Help a Mother Out continues to innovate beyond traditional charity models. In 2019, they launched ELO Baby, their own private-label diaper brand. And now they’re piloting a purchasing program, o ering their highquality, North American-made diapers to nonprofits at 35% below retail cost.
“If you have the means, it is so easy to help somebody,” Truong insists, echoing Oprah’s original message. As California faces what she describes as an anticipated “tidal wave of need” from federal safety net cuts and tari s, that simple truth remains the organization’s driving force. In a state that ranks as the world’s fifthlargest economy, ensuring every baby has clean diapers shouldn’t be revolutionary –yet it remains urgently necessary.
Diapers can cost Bay Area families up to $4,860+ per child. Help a Mother Out ensures no family chooses between feeding their child and changing them—supporting dignity, health, and economic stability.
photo by Christie Hemm Klok
Small Acts, Lasting Impact
It costs $1 to diaper one baby for one day.
• $1,000: Supplies diapers to 33 babies for one month.
• $2,500: Helps 5 babies with a full supply of diapers for an entire year.
• $5,000: Fully stocks an emergency diaper pantry for 3 months.
• $10,000: Diapers 20 babies from birth through potty training.
“The world would be a wonderful place if everyone had diapers for their babies.”
- Tiphany, Mother
Help a Mother Out® works to improve baby and family well being by increasing access to diapers for families in need. A family’s access to a reliable supply of clean diapers reduces the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, improves baby’s health and comfort, and enables baby’s participation in early care and education programs. Our vision is a day when every baby has a healthy supply of diapers.
508-3710 lisa@helpamotherout.org
Meghan Crowell, Vice Chair
Mitra Rezvan, Treasurer
Claudia Ceseña, Secretary
Denise Bethel
Daniel Kelly
Ashley Martin-Golis
Sari McConnell, CFRE
Caroline O’Connor
Swati Pande
Help a Mother Out sta helping with a diaper drive at Stanford Health.
photo by Christie Hemm Klok
photo by
Christie Hemm Klok
Dismantling Disability Barriers
Most baby care equipment assumes parents can reach over high crib rails and lift infants while standing. For the growing number of parents with disabilities, such assumptions create daily barriers that separate them from the most basic acts of caregiving. Through the Looking Glass has spent over four decades dismantling such barriers.
Founded in 1982 and based in Berkeley, Through the Looking Glass (TLG) serves more than 350 families annually, with 90 percent being low-income people of color. Executive Director Megan Kirshbaum explains the organization’s straightforward but life-changing mission, “To provide and encourage respectful and empowering services – guided by personal disability experience and disability culture – for families that have children, parents, or grandparents with disability or medical issues.”
They bring their child development, occupational therapy, and mental health expertise into people’s homes, including supports for parents from the beginning of their relationships with their babies with disabilities, and supports for parents with disabilities and their babies.
Since 1991, TLG has pioneered adaptive babycare services from occupational therapists for parents and caregivers with physical and vision disabilities or health conditions, developing techniques and adaptive equipment that maximize safety, accessibility, independence, reduce caregiver pain and diculty, and enhance parent/child relationships.
Scenes play out that would be impossible without their in-
"Since becoming pregnant with my first son in 2015, Through the Looking Glass has provided invaluable assistance. Initially, I was introduced to skilled occupational therapists who o ered adaptive baby care adaptations and training, enabling me to care for my child despite my limited mobility. As my son entered his early toddler years, I accessed home care services and benefited from the guidance of a remarkable behavioral therapist who provided essential parenting advice. The daycare center, a key highlight, facilitated my pursuit of education at the University of California, Berkeley.
“TLG is like my second family, and I hold them dear in my heart."
– Zoha Raad
terventions: a father with a spinal cord injury safely lifting his eight-month-old daughter from a crib whose side panel slides open horizontally instead of dropping down vertically. “We adapt them so that the side door slides open and closed and has locks that toddlers can’t undo,” Kirshbaum explains. For a person that uses a walker or “a person with poor balance while walking, we attach baby seats to walkers,” Kirshbaum notes, illustrating how their occupational therapists customize many solutions for individual families’ needs.
The organization’s sta brings authenticity to their work – nearly 70% of the 60 sta members have disabilities, are parents of children with disabilities, or are members of families with disabilities. This personal understanding, combined with their professional expertise as psychologists, occupational therapists, and developmental specialists, creates what Kirshbaum calls “a kind of practical wisdom in our services.”
Their impact extends beyond individual families. Since its founding TLG has trained hundreds of thousands of professionals to better serve families with disabilities.
Yet their work faces an uncertain future. Much of Through the Looking Glass’s funding comes from federal sources now threatened by budget cuts, putting programs that serve some of the Bay Area’s most vulnerable families at risk. TLG is committed to continuing to provide their vital, flexible services that are tailored to the diverse low-income families with disabilities who need them the most.
TLG Occupational Therapists attach baby seats to walkers so parents or grandparents with walking di culties can securely move baby within the home.
Your Support Nurtures the Resilience of Families with Disabilities
Through the Looking Glass transforms lives through targeted innovations – a crib that opens sideways, a walker adapted to hold a baby seat, home visits that meet families where they are most comfortable. Your donation directly funds the adaptive equipment, occupational therapy, child development, and mental health services that support resilience in children and families with disabilities. With federal funding under threat, private support has never been more critical. Help ensure that disability never determines a family’s capacity to thrive together. Every single contribution strengthens a community that believes all families deserve the chance to flourish at home together.
To provide and encourage respectful and empowering services – guided by personal disability experience and disability culture – for families that have children, parents, or grandparents with disability or medical issues.
Through the Looking Glass www.lookingglass.org
Contact: Megan Kirshbaum, PhD
Executive Director & Founder (510) 725-2253 mkirshbaum@lookingglass.org
KEY SUPPORTERS
TLG Board of Directors
Individual Donors
Sunlight Giving
Quality Counts
Regional Center of the East Bay
First 5 Alameda County
Alameda County
Behavioral Health Services
City of Berkeley
Oakland Fund for Children and Youth
National Institute for Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, HHS
Head Start,HHS
The Many Ways to Give...
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 94-2823116
By Credit Card: lookingglass.org/donate
Babies and toddlers with disabilities receive developmental services during family home visits and in the inclusive Early Head Start center.
Babies and toddlers with disabilities are included in TLG's Early Head Start center.
Gabriel was stunned when he opened a notice from his landlord: his rent was going up by 16.6%. “I felt embarrassed and worried,” he recalls, “It was just too much for me to pay.”
Already spending more than 80% of his income on rent, Gabriel feared he’d have nothing left for food, transportation, or medical care. Or worse, that he’d be evicted and have nowhere to go if he failed to pay.
That’s when he turned to the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. They discovered the increase was more than double the legal limit and demanded it be corrected. The landlord then threatened to terminate Gabriel’s tenancy.
The organization proved the landlord’s threat to end Gabriel’s tenancy was retaliation and therefore unlawful. Thanks to their generous supporters who fund legal interventions, Gabriel kept his home at a rent he could a ord.
Sadly, Gabriel’s experience is all too common. In civil court, landlords nearly always arrive with attorneys,
while most low-income tenants face daunting legal processes alone. “It’s surprising to people that a tenant could lose their home without ever having a lawyer by their side,” says Cynthia Chagolla, the Law Foundation’s chief program officer.
That’s where the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley steps in. Each year, the Law Foundation helps more than 14,000 people in Silicon Valley –including thousands of children. With an 80-person team of attorneys and social workers, they meet urgent needs while working to change the systems that create them.
They are Silicon Valley’s nonprofit law o ce – ensuring justice isn’t a privilege only for those who can a ord it, but a right for everyone. They assist families navigating immigration challenges, children in foster care, disabled individuals denied healthcare, students unjustly expelled from school, and others confronting unfair barriers.
"Without legal help, families living in poverty can’t protect their rights in housing, health, and economic stability. With just days to respond to an eviction notice, who will help someone find out if it’s even legal before their belongings end up on the sidewalk? I support the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley so that everyone can access legal help, no matter their income."
– Paul Grewal Coinbase, Chief Legal O cer Law Foundation, Board Member
$2,000 a month. “People assume the roads are paved in gold here – they’re just not,” Chagolla says.
Today, steep government funding cuts threaten vital safety net services, while changes to federal priorities will destabilize community members’ access to healthcare, food, housing, and education.
For more than 50 years, the Law Foundation has watched how changes in policies and legal issues a ect lowincome neighbors. The Law Foundation fights against unjust impacts through direct legal services, education outreach, and advocacy to bring hope, help, and justice to neighbors facing crisis –people like Gabriel.
Silicon Valley may be known for innovation and prosperity, but thousands of
are surviving on as little as
“My story is a success story,” continues Gabriel. “It’s good that if someone finds themselves in a situation like mine, they can turn to the Law Foundation.”
families
Only 8% of the civil legal problems facing low-income people in California receive enough legal help. Law Foundation of Silicon Valley is the region’s nonprofit law o ce, providing free life-changing legal services to over 14,000 children and adults each year.
Join the Fight for Justice
In most civil (non-criminal) legal matters, people don’t have the right to an attorney. That means low-income children and adults can face lifechanging crises without anyone to stand beside them. Free legal help from the Law Foundation changes that.
• $500 can protect a young immigrant… who cannot reunify with parents due to abuse, abandonment, or neglect. This gift can increase their safety by covering the cost to file legal papers for permanent residency.
• $4,500 can help someone facing eviction… by providing an attorney to help them navigate the entire process and help keep them in stable housing.
• $10,000 supports one day of providing walk-in clients with free legal advice… Each walk-in clinic provides powerful help to dozens of low-income neighbors on a wide range of issues from housing to economic stability.
Montgomery & Christina Kersten
Law Foundation Board of Directors
San Francisco Foundation
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
The Sobrato Family Foundation
ANNUAL PARTNERS
Baker Botts LLP
Cooley LLP
DLA Piper US
Fenwick & West LLP
Goodwin Procter LLP
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcli e LLP
Wilson Sonsini Foundation
Neel & Carrie Chatterjee
Natasha & Marco Innocenti
Building a Network of Legal First Responders
In communities across America, a tragic reality plays out daily: 92% of people facing legal issues do not have the legal support that they need. They handle issues alone, navigating life-altering cases like evictions, custody battles, and debt cases without the critical benefit of an attorney. Meanwhile, there are 5,000 people living in poverty for every one free attorney available to help them.
Kate Crowley Richardson has spent 13 years as a public interest lawyer witnessing this broken system firsthand. “The legal system is completely broken in that people don’t understand what their legal rights are, can’t access legal protections, and don’t know how to find help,” she explains.
This realization led Richardson to join Legal Link, an Oakland-based anti-poverty organization that’s revolutionizing how legal representation reaches vulnerable communities. Rather than adding more lawyers to an already overwhelmed system, Legal Link trains a new kind of frontline worker.
Legal Link’s breakthrough approach centers on their trademarked Legal First Aid® curriculum. Just as medical emergencies require more than surgeons – with EMTs, nurses, and community health workers forming crucial support layers – legal crises need a similar ecosystem. “In the legal world we basically only have the equivalent of surgeons,” Richardson notes.
The organization identifies trusted community partners – housing case managers, social workers, community health workers – and trains them to spot legal issues before they become crises. These aren’t aspiring lawyers; they’re existing frontline workers trained to recognize when life problems have legal solutions.
Take the housing voucher discrimination case Richardson describes: a major San Francisco organization serving homeless clients discovered through Legal Link training that landlords cannot discriminate against tenants because they are paying their rent with a voucher. “That law existed,
“Legal First Aid® training with Legal Link has helped me keep more families stably housed while transforming me as a professional. I’ve seen how sharing legal knowledge strengthens the power already within our clients, giving me hope we can transform how the law impacts low-income communities.”
– Melanie Young, Housing Advocate
but frontline providers weren’t aware of the protection,” Richardson explains. Armed with this knowledge, staff helped educate landlords about the law and their clients secured housing before their vouchers expired.
The model works because it meets people where they are. “86% of people experiencing legal issues don’t recognize their issues as legal problems,” Richardson explains. “And even when they do, they don’t turn to lawyers.” Instead, they seek help at food banks, community clinics, and social service agencies – exactly where Legal Link trains frontline providers.
Melanie Young, a housing advocate at San Francisco’s Homeless Prenatal Program, completed Legal Link’s
fellowship and now creates specialized training for domestic violence survivors and immigrants. Young recently helped a formerly incarcerated client eliminate $60,000 in wrongfully accumulated child support debt.
Legal Link has already trained over 2,000 community advocates across Northern California. With a refined model proving effective, the organization is poised for national expansion. “We now have a model that we know is tested and effective, and we found a way to scale it sustainably,” Richardson says.
As Richardson puts it: “The law should belong to the people.” Legal Link is making that radical idea a practical reality, one trained advocate at a time.
Join the Legal First Aid® Movement
Legal Link train 2,000 more frontline legal advocates over the next three years. For $500, you can ensure one community health worker, housing case manager, or social worker receives Legal First Aid® certification – multiplying their ability to help families avoid eviction, escape domestic violence, and access benefits. These trained advocates resolve 80% of legal issues they encounter, preventing crises before they require costly emergency interventions.
Legal Link’s mission is to remove legal barriers that prolong poverty by adding critically needed capacity to the legal ecosystem. We are training and supporting a new frontline of Legal First Aid responders.
Legal Link
www.legallink.org
1721 Broadway, Ste 201 Oakland, CA 94612
Contact: Kate Crowley Richardson Co-Executive Director (415) 851-1755 kate@legallink.org
Bigglesworth
Family Foundation
City of San Jose, Housing Department
City of San Francisco, Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development
Destination Home
Greenbridge Family Foundation
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Mimi and Peter Haas Fund
Sunlight Giving
Tipping Point Community
van Löben Sels/ RembeRock Foundation
BOARD MEMBERS:
Desiree Almendral
Judy Appel
John Beem
The Honorable
Charles S. Crompton
Shashi Deb
Margaret Hagan
Link 1721 Broadway, Ste 201 Oakland, CA 94612
Legal First Aid-trained health providers.
Legal Link team on-site at longtime partner Homeless Prenatal Program in San Francisco.
For the Environment
“The environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect.”
– Margaret Mead
VIDA VERDE NATURE EDUCATION
Bridging the Gap
The banana slug moves silently across the forest floor, a strange but welcoming ambassador to the redwood cathedral above. For the fourth-grader crouched beside it, this yellow mollusk represents something powerful: a willingness to try new things.
Despite their close physical proximity to the natural world, thousands of children in the Bay Area have never experienced the misty peace of a redwood grove, nor slipped o their shoes to run in the sand and climb gingerly around the tidepools. Research shows that time spent in nature has a positive impact on mental and physical well-being, and contributes to the academic achievement, self-confidence, and emotional regulation of children. Unfortunately, not all children can access the outdoors in the same way.
Since 2001, Vida Verde has bridged the gap for students who face systemic barriers to spending time in the natural world and to accessing the benefits of being outside. Vida Verde is the only Bay Area outdoor education program serving exclusively low-income schools – those with 85% or more of students qualify for free lunch. The free three-day/ two-night program serves more than 700 students annually, with 99% of students identifying as people of color and many children coming from immigrant families. The children travel from Oakland, San Francisco, Richmond, East Palo Alto –communities where children often live in dense urban neighborhoods.
Vida Verde’s mission is to promote educational equity in the outdoors, and every aspect of the program is designed to capitalize on the linguistic and cultural wealth of students. The strengths that students bring to camp are used as a springboard to help them become successful in a new environment, with trust, community building, high expectations, and encouragement acting as cornerstones of the program. The impact is immediate and extends well beyond camp, with teacher surveys reporting improved academic achievement and increases in positivity, teamwork, empathy, and new connections to the natural world. During the summer, teens are invited back to Vida Verde to revisit the programming from their childhood, and spend a week on-site exploring their interests and learning how to advocate for the natural world, and to lead change. The program also creates pipelines for former campers to return as counselors and, after college, to apply for positions on the program sta team. In this way, Vida Verde is not only bridging the gap for young children, ensuring access to the natural world, but also providing long-term solutions related to college and career readiness.
Since 2001, Vida Verde has served thousands of youth from historically marginalized communities around the San Francisco Bay Area. Vida Verde is the only outdoor education program in the Bay Area that specializes in environmental education for low-income kids.
At Sam McDonald Park, campers learn about the redwood forest ecosystem, which includes banana slugs. Banana slugs are decomposers that recycle nutrients back into the soil. They play a vital role in maintaining healthy forest ecosystems. Kissing a banana slug is said to bring good luck!
Unlocking Nature’s Magic
In the era of federal Title I funding cuts, and with screen time becoming increasingly ubiquitous, Vida Verde’s work is more vital than ever. The organization deliberately avoids federal funding, relying instead on the generosity of missionaligned individual donors and foundations.
For $600 you can help Vida Verde bridge the gap in access for one child, sponsoring a student’s three-day camp experience. Your support covers the cost of programming, but provides an invaluable opportunity to unlock nature’s magic; the benefits of being outside and forming a connection with the natural world are myriad, and far outweigh the cost. For $18,000, you can sponsor a classroom of 30 students, and for $36,000 you can sponsor an entire school.
Vida Verde’s mission is to promote educational equity by providing FREE overnight environmental learning experiences for students who don’t otherwise get the opportunity.
On Vida Verde’s 23-acre Hidden Creek farm, students help to grow and harvest fresh organic produce. Students learn about the lifecycle of di erent plants, and about the impact of weather and climate on our local food systems.
David & Lucile Packard Foundation
Ludwick Family Foundation
Peery Foundation
Sand Hill Foundation
Morgan Family Foundation
Satterberg Foundation
Quest Foundation
Louis L. Borick Foundation
Valhalla Charitable Foundation
The Many Ways to Give...
"Vida Verde was an incredible experience for my students. There was so much joy and love during the trip. Students chose to be brave and try new things even if they were scared. This learning experience is something they can bring into the classroom and directly into their own lives. I believe it is a transformative experience that students will always remember."
– Itzigere Cruz Duran Classroom Teacher, Ravenswood City School District
Hancock Family Fund
Kimball Foundation
John & Marcia Goldman Foundation
Bob & Meryl Selig
Nancy Schaub
Tomkat Ranch Education Foundation
Atkinson Foundation
Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation
Moca Foundation
Vida Verde Nature Education vveducation.org
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 36-4471996
Contact: Dr. Jessie Blundell Development Director (650) 747-9288 jessie@vveducation.org
By Check:
Vida Verde Nature Education
SCAN TO DONATE
Youth Development
“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Conversations: Tenisha Patterson Brown and Dr. Hagar Elgendy
as told to The Giving List Staff
The Women Who Level the Playing Field
Every NFL fan knows, the action takes place on the gridiron. For four quarters, come rain, snow, or blistering heat, our favorite players suit up and play with a deep passion, commitment, and love for the game. And that love extends to the communities they play the game for.
Here’s what you may not know – their wives and significant others are equally passionate and committed to those communities off the field. In 2006, Off The Field NFL Wives Association was founded by a group of visionary NFL wives to empower their communities through philanthropic work and to lift up one another.
Tenisha Patterson Brown is the current president of Off The Field (OTF). She is a sports attorney, legal consultant, entrepreneur, author, businesswoman, and a philanthropist. She founded Definitive Sports Representation now Definitive Sports Group to help transform athletes and their partners into successful brands.
She and her husband, Everette Brown, established the Everette Brown Bag Foundation to promote health and wellness in rural communities and to help eliminate childhood hunger.
She has been featured in Forbes, Black Enterprise Magazine, and TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress as well as the Top 30 Under 30 Alumni by Florida State University. She has a deep passion for philanthropy and a deep belief in the power of community.
Dr. Hagar Elgendy, is the current vice president and chair of community outreach for OTF. Originally from Egypt, she got her Master’s in Neuroscience from Tulane University and did her residency at UNC Chapel Hill and is currently a UNC Sports Medicine Fellow.
She was instrumental in helping launch The Trust, an NFL post-retirement care program – an ecosystem of support to help former NFL players succeed in life after they leave the game.
Elgendy was also a competitive swimmer and represented Egypt at the Olympic Trials.
She and her husband, Cedric Peerman, founded and run a nonprofit NFL Flag Football Elite league that promotes safety and teamwork principles.
The Giving List: What first drew you to volunteer work and giving back to your community?
Tanisha Patterson Brown: Honestly, it was the amount of effort and time that our community poured into us. We are so blessed, and the love we felt from the fans and the community itself was overwhelming. Because we usually come from a place of privilege, we want to make sure we pour back into the children, the community, and the women. Off The Field is a perfect
Tenisha Patterson Brown, President of Off the Field NFLWA.
conduit for that because it gives us an opportunity to serve with our sisters while touching those NFL communities directly.
Dr. Hagar Elgendy: I grew up in Egypt, and my mother was a pharmacist there. I remember visiting the clinic with her and seeing instances where patients couldn’t afford their medications. I’d watch her extend herself to help patients overcome barriers to their care. That planted a seed for me – not only for medicine but for understanding how to serve someone in a way that stretches you while leaving a big impression on them. As a physician now, I can say I’ve always had that spirit.
TGL: Did you both grow up in football-loving families? How did coming to love football put you in the path of philanthropy?
TPB: I grew up around sports and was actually a huge basketball fan, though I loved football too – I was a Dallas Cowboys fan. My first NFL game was in Dallas during Thanksgiving. I had no idea I would marry a football player; that wasn’t on my radar. But I went to Florida State and fell in love with sports, got into recruiting for football and basketball. My first love was giving back to my recruits. Many came from mothers who were trusting the university to provide a safe space for them. As a recruiter, I took that seriously – making sure they had food, were safe, knew right from wrong, and would leave with a degree. My service in sports really developed from that, which rolled into marrying my husband, who I met in college. He also had a heart for service with tons of community service hours. We’ve made it our lifestyle, even teaching our five-year-old daughter, who comes with us to pack bags at community service events and serve at Boys and Girls Club events in Vegas.
HE: My story’s different – growing up in Egypt, I wasn’t familiar with American football. I was introduced to the game through college and the Athletes in Action Ministry at the University of Miami. I met my husband on an NFL mission trip in Costa Rica. Through my medical career at Tulane, I was part of a multidisciplinary group figuring out what post-retirement football healthcare should look like. We ended up winning the grant that now stands as the Trust program – the post-retirement player care structure. I spent a long time researching and developing a passion to advocate for NFL players and families. Then I married an NFL player and figured
out how to apply everything I’d learned. It was non-traditional but couldn’t be better because each of those seeds prepared me for where I’m at now.
TGL: How do you feel the values, skills, and benefits of a team sport like football intersect with similar values you’d find in philanthropy and building community?
TPB: Having a coach and team energy where everyone plays a part is crucial… We’re very much a team… We understand roles: who’s offense, who’s defense. It makes sense because as wives, we understand the game… With Off The Field, we have our 2025-2026 playbook of what we’re going to achieve. Athletes are typically the best employees and participants because they’re coachable and listen well, especially elite athletes. Hagar is an elite athlete as well. Many of our board members are former athletes too, so they understand how each person plays a part in executing plays and winning.
HE: Tenisha hit it spot-on… As an elite athlete, if you put something in front of me, I’m goal-driven. Most of us are that way – put up a challenge, and if we can see
An Off the Field NFLWA board member walks hand in hand with a family member of a New Orleans shooting victim.
your vision, we’ll go after it. That athlete mentality carries over because we function as “I have your back, you have my back, let’s do this together.” It’s been wonderful being part of a team where we can look back and say, “This is what we did together, and these are the lives we’ve impacted.”
TGL: How did the Off The Field NFL Wives Association get started, and why?
TPB: Off The Field was officially created in 2006, but the first fashion show was almost 25 years ago in New Orleans. It started with our Founder Sherice Brown and her friend Angela Allen going to the Super Bowl with nothing for the wives to do. They wanted to create a space to give back and celebrate the sisterhood, so they created the fashion show. Since then, we’ve donated over a million dollars and impacted over a hundred charities. This year, we have an aggressive but doable fundraising goal of a million dollars by December. By the time we finish our programming and Road to LA2028, we will have impacted over 10,000 children. The impact and legacy come from not just one-off events – we’re leaving lasting impacts with these children.
HE: What makes us strong is that we come from different seasons of life and different seasons through the NFL – active players’ wives, immediately after retirement, retired for 20 or 40 years. Through those
Board members at the Super Bowl fashion show.
Tenisha Patterson Brown and Dr. Hagar Elgendy.
“We’ve donated over a million dollars and impacted over a hundred charities. This year, we have an aggressive but doable fundraising goal of a million dollars by December. By the time we finish our programming and Road to LA2028, we will have impacted over 10,000 children.”
– Tenisha Patterson Brown
different seasons come different experiences, and that collective wisdom makes us a strong sisterhood.
TGL: With the Super Bowl coming to Santa Clara, what special philanthropic events will Off The Field be putting on for the Bay Area, and what impact will these have on local nonprofits?
HE: The Bay Area is home for me, so coming back this way is really exciting. We have multiple initiatives:
Our water safety initiative partners with the American Heart Association and USA Swimming, bringing together NFL champions with USA Swimming Olympians to reach the community. We’ll host roughly 250 kids from the community, teaching them basic water safety and how to swim. We’re intentional about leaving something behind – traditionally, it’s been at least six swimming lessons for each participating child.
Our Girls in Flag initiative works with NFL FLAG and the American Heart Association, hosting a similar number of kids. We teach the basics of flag football and work to address barriers for girls participating in sports. Our leave-behinds include practical items like sports bras, tennis shoes, and deodorants – things that address barriers girls may have in participating in sports.
We have a softball initiative where we identify a local girls’ softball team. We have exciting partners who want to commit to these communities, providing cleats and working to secure funding to leave behind with the club.
Our basketball initiative partners with the NBA Wives Association, using basketball as a platform. We’ve part-
nered with Boys and Girls Clubs in the past, addressing barriers for both girls and boys participating in sports.
These aren’t just events – they’re experiences that leave something lasting for the communities we serve.
TGL: Tell me about your annual Super Bowl charity fashion show.
TPB: Our 25th Annual Charity Fashion Show will be held February 6, 2026, at Coco Republic in San Francisco from 12 to 3 PM. We’ll have performances, and it will be the biggest show we’ve ever had. We’re celebrating 25 years, and our beneficiaries will be the Boys & Girls Clubs of Oakland and San Francisco, who are our community partners. We’re excited because this is how we started – with a fashion show – and now we’ve evolved into so much more. We’re grateful for our partnerships with the American Heart Association, the NFL, NFLPA, and the Trust. The fashion show celebrates our sisterhood while ensuring we leave money and positive impact for the community.
TGL: How does the association continue throughout the year to uphold its mission of sisterhood, service, and support?
TPB: We launched OTF Cares, which is near and
dear to my heart. It’s a way to support our members and families by providing financial assistance for emergency needs and scholarships to members’ children. We give away five scholarships yearly and match them within the community. Our chapters have captains who engage in community efforts with three mandatory events yearly: a recruiting event for members, a social event for fun,
and a community service event. We want to ensure we’re touching communities locally, even when we’re not there for a Super Bowl.
TGL: You mentioned you’ve donated or will be close to donating a million dollars to over a hundred charities in your 25-year history. What does the future hold?
Off the Field leadership team and the New Orleans Chapter Captain at the Water Safety Program at Tulane University.
Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones hosts the Off the Field NFLWA water safety class.
TPB: Right now, we want to reach over 90% of former and current player wives. I want at least 90% of wives to join our organization, be represented with Off The Field… I’m focused on giving them educational and business resources.
HE: A big part is ensuring they feel educated and empowered to access and understand what resources and benefits they have during play and retirement. We’ve educated ourselves on what’s available to them, translated it in an accessible manner, and distributed it among our members and the NFL community family so everyone feels supported.
You won’t see us go somewhere without an educational component. Our recent conferences have focused on breast cancer screenings, prostate health, mental health and well-being, nutrition, and caregiver burden – topics sometimes overlooked but critical in any season of life.
TGL: I believe both your husbands, Cedric and Everette, are now retired. Are they both coaching?
TPB: My husband is in the waiting phase of coaching, but yes, he’s a coach. He is also a franchisee and realtor.
HE: This season, Cedric joined the UNC football team as interim team chaplain. Coach Belichick brought a great season to UNC, and being part of a program with a fresh start has been wonderful. As a physician, walking onto the football field and seeing my husband there has been wonderful for us as a family, and for our kids to experience it with us.
TGL: I don’t think the interview would be complete without asking for Super Bowl predictions. Who’s going to the Super Bowl?
HE: I don’t think any NFL wife who has played and has a heart for a team would dare say any specific team!
TPB: We won’t go down that road. Whatever teams are there, we’ll cheer them on. We have our allegiances, but the best two teams will be there, and we’ll support them.
NFL families at the NFLPA Summer Getaway for the Girls in Flag Initiative.
Lights, Camera, Inclusion
“We’re so excited to be partnering with Futures Explored, Inc and their incredible Film + Media Studios, a vocational program empowering individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities through real-world experience in film production and so much more! Their mission: Creating Inclusive Futures for All, where individuals are included, empowered, and given equal opportunity to thrive. We’re honored to support that vision by hiring talented individuals with disabilities to help bring our latest project to life.”
– Alycia Anderson Global Keynote Speaker, Disability Advocate, Accessibility Strategist, and Podcast HostPushing Forward with Alycia
At Futures Explored’s new Concord studio, the air hums with possibility. Cameras roll, lights flicker, and a young director named Dylan Lee calls “Action!” For him, this is more than a hobby. It’s the life he once thought out of reach. “I’ve directed three short films already,” Dylan says. “When I first joined, I never thought I would ever be a film director.”
Dylan discovered Futures Explored in high school, first through its summer film camps, then through its imaginative and inclusive Creative Arts and Media program. Over four years, the nonprofit has become his creative home. He’s learned to collaborate, gained confidence in directing, and even discovered a gift for writing. “My time here has allowed me to really express myself and actually turn my ideas into reality,” he explains.
Futures Explored Creative Arts and Media program o ers state-ofthe art classes and workshops across a wide variety of disciplines for artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In their new studio, professional filmmakers and artists
guide students through directing, acting, editing, scriptwriting, even securing permits for shoots. The program recently expanded to digital art, photography, and animation –responding to what students had long asked for. “For those students, this is a dream come true,” Dylan says.
The new building brims with energy, though resources remain tight. Some rooms are still divided by curtains, and equipment is stretched thin. “More equipment is always appreciated,” Dylan notes, “because we could work on bigger and better films to really bring our ideas to life.”
Each class offers students new options, more chances to find a path that fits. For many, it’s not just art; it’s independence. For parents, the program is equally transformative. “As a parent of a young adult with a disability, my greatest wish is simple: for my child to be happy, to be included, and to feel like he belongs,” says Ann DeRose, a board member whose son also attends. “Futures Explored makes that possible. They break down barriers that too often keep people with disabilities on the outside looking in.”
Beyond Concord, Futures Explored serves over 500 individuals across Northern California through programs in Personal Wellness, Community Connections, and Employment & Education. Whether it’s a sensory room for someone with high physical needs, a volunteer shift at a food bank, or a job coaching at a new workplace, each service is rooted in the same ethos: empowering choice, building inclusion, and fostering lives of meaning.
At the Concord arts hub, that ethos is visible every day. What was once a “program,” as Dylan puts it, is now “more like a community.” And when the cameras roll, that community is telling stories the world has long needed to hear.
Dylan in the spotlight!
Led by the choices of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Futures Explored creates equitable access to relevant programs, supports, and advocacy.
Creativity Knows No Limits
Futures
Explored has built more than a studio – it has built a stage for possibility. Your support ensures that creativity remains within reach for artists with disabilities. A gift today helps finish the Concord hub with real walls and soundproofing, puts professional-grade cameras and software in students’ hands, and funds new classes in digital art, animation, and beyond.
Most importantly, your donation reduces waitlists and keeps programs free, welcoming more aspiring filmmakers, writers, and artists into the fold. Join us in saying “Action!” on the next story – because with your help, every voice can take its place in the spotlight.
Futures Explored www.futures-explored.org (925) 332-7183 Contact: Erica Horn Executive Director (925) 580-5185 ericahorn@futures-explored.org By
Script check! Preparing for the next scene together.
Creativity in action: the team comes together for a mosaic group art project.
Creative Arts & Media participants at the March 2025 Turn the Page showcase and film premiere.
Staying Afloat: A Lifeline for Foster Youth
“Sometimes success feels like staying afloat,” says Briana, a former foster youth describing her uphill journey. At 18, “emancipated” from foster care, and just six months into college, she found herself with nowhere to go when the dorms closed for winter break. With no supportive family and no program like Pivotal’s then in place, Briana spent that holiday on a couch, distraught and unsure of what the future would hold.
Today, young people like Briana have Pivotal, which provides a lifeline for youth in and from foster care. “We serve young people starting as early as their eighthgrade year of middle school all the way through the completion of a bachelor’s degree or vocational credential,” explains Ashley Matysiak, the organization’s director of program partnerships.
Pivotal has been providing education and employment support to foster youth for over 35 years. In the critical years when foster youth “age out of the system” and are often cut o from services and funding, Pivotal is there investing in their education, their well-being, and their future. Pivotal’s trauma-informed, one-on-one coaching program pairs students with professional coaches who act as trusted guides through every phase of their education. These coaches o er far more than academic help. “People heal from trauma through relationships,” Matysiak notes, and Pivotal’s model builds precisely that. Coaches check in regularly, talking through school progress, social stresses, and long-term goals.
Pivotal also tackles the invisible weight of childhood trauma. “Mental wellness is directly connected to everything we do,” says CEO Matt Bell. Coaches receive intensive training to recognize distress and connect youth with resources. In 2024, the organization established a Mental Health Fund that provides for counseling and assessments, ensuring that once students age out of the system and public supports vanish – they can still access therapy.
For Briana, this kind of support proved life changing. When anxiety made classes too di cult to attend, her Pivotal coach
Pivotal scholar Briana and her service dog, Ariel.
literally walked beside her onto campus, helping her see that school could feel safe. With therapy and coaching, Briana returned to college and thrived. This spring, she graduated and earned admission to San Jose State to study psychology.
Pivotal’s impact can be seen not only in the continuing success of their students but especially when compared to the outcomes of typical foster youth. In California, just 63 percent of foster youth graduate high school. At Pivotal, more than 80 percent do. Of those graduates, more than 80 percent continue to higher education, and 81 percent complete their post-secondary goal. Nationally, just 10 percent of foster youth earn a college degree. Last year alone, Pivotal supported 442 Bay Area foster youth with coaching and provided nearly $300,000 in post-secondary scholarships.
As Briana’s journey shows, when foster youth have steady relationships and access to healing, they can move far beyond staying afloat. With Pivotal, they chart new waters toward bright horizons – never alone, always with a coach by their side.
“We support causes and organizations that we feel could make a difference in the world. We’ve been impressed to see the life-changing impact that Pivotal has been making in the lives of young people from foster care and we are proud and honored to lend our support.”
– Mary and Mark Stevens Pivotal Dream Makers Circle Members
Help Foster Youth Thrive
You can be the di erence in a young person’s life. By supporting Pivotal, you give local foster youth the tools to turn struggle into success.
• $1,000 funds training for one dedicated coach for one year.
• $5,000 funds individualized coaching, including mental health support for one foster youth scholar for one year.
• $10,000 provides scholarships for five foster youth scholars for one year.
"I know that I’m not guaranteed a perfect future, but I now have a future worth striving for." – John, Pivotal Alum
“
“The experiences I’m having and the network and skills I'm building are invaluable. This experience has been life changing.” –
Pivotal supports young people in and from foster care to realize their educational and career goals and ensure their equitable access to opportunity. We envision a community in which every young person gets the education, career, and life they want for themselves.
Contact: Chelsey Souza Chief Development O cer (408) 458-8394 chelsey.souza@pivotalnow.org
KEY SUPPORTERS
Debbie and Paul Baker
Brandenburg Family Foundation
Comerica Charitable Foundation
Crown Family Philanthropies
Louise De Putron
Robin and Lindy Driscoll
Tara Farnsworth
KLA Foundation
Leo M. Shortino Foundation
Bob and Connie Lurie
Dianne and Regis McKenna
Myra Reinhard Family Foundation
John O’Farrell and Gloria Principe
Maribeth Portz and David Wanek
Sobrato Philanthropies
Sheri Sobrato
Lisa and Matthew Sonsini
Mary and Mark Stevens
Thomas and Ellen Hogue
Family Foundation
Valley Foundation
Grace and Steve Voorhis
Warmenhoven Family Foundation
Kevin and Stacia Wells
William and Charlene Glikbarg Foundation
Diana, Pivotal Alum
Jasmine, a Pivotal scholar and recent graduate from San Jose State University, at Pivotal’s annual End of Year Celebration.
Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth in an Era of Targeted Hate
What began in the heart of the Castro as a community dance for LGBTQ+ youth has blossomed into a life-changing haven that o ers a comprehensive landscape of services and support that engages 2,000 youth, from 10 to 24 years old, across the Bay Area.
Born during the AIDS epidemic – and under similar societal scrutiny – 37 years ago, Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC) sought to provide queer youth under 21 in the Castro with a safe, a rming space to explore their identity and craft chosen families.
“We started as a simple sports and community group,” explains Executive Director Gael Lala-Chávez, “but we quickly realized [LGBTQ+] young people needed so much more.” This philosophy permeates the breadth of LYRIC’s services, which include peer-led support programs, housing navigation, health access, legal support, career development, and case management. Youth advocates specialize in di erent areas, ensuring comprehensive support as young people face employment challenges, housing insecurity, and healthcare navigation.
Today’s political climate has intensified the urgency of LYRIC’s mission. “We’re seeing increased family rejection, higher rates of suicidality, more homelessness, and widespread food insecurity among our youth,” Lala-Chávez shares. “We’re essentially operating in crisis response mode to help vulnerable young people survive. Across the country, an alarming rise in policy attacks threatens the livelihoods and very existence of LGBTQ+ youth. They are sending a clear message: you don’t belong,” says Lala-Chávez.
But LGBTQ+ youth do belong. They belong in safe, a rming schools, families, and communities with supportive, lasting personal relationships.
LYRIC participants at
The current reality may be sobering, but the stories of resilience are radiant. Jack’s story demonstrates the power of LYRIC’s work. Jack relocated from San Jose to access better medical care, but on their first night in San Francisco, the shelter bed they were promised was unavailable. LYRIC provided Jack with a hotel voucher, food, and other necessities to ensure their safety and stability while waiting for a shelter bed. After Jack found stable housing, LYRIC still supported them with frequently overlooked items like hygiene kits, charging accessories for their devices, and a “just a warm, safe place to hang out with peers in the community and grab some food and decompress.” They also helped Jack connect with a Youth Advocate and apply to a Career Development program.
Jack’s story highlights the importance of LYRIC’s integrated programs that meet young people where they are at and help them navigate complex support systems.
LYRIC’s long history of accomplishments and impact in the community and nationally fuels its commitment to building a world that honors, respects, and appreciates LGBTQ+ youth for who they are and who they want to be.
San Francisco Pride, 1989.
Help Support and Empower LGBTQ+ Youth
more than ever, LGBTQ+ youth need adult allies to show up with love, commitment, and action. Together, we can challenge the hateful narratives being pushed, creating space for all young people to see themselves not as “other,” but as empowered, loved individuals with a community of support.
LYRIC needs $500,000 in unrestricted funding to meet LGBTQ+ youth’s evolving needs in 2026. This investment will grow a rming, wraparound programs, expand virtual access for those beyond San Francisco, and strengthen statewide partnerships to ensure more youth receive the support they deserve, wherever they are.
LYRIC’s mission is to build community and inspire positive social change through education enhancement, career trainings, health promotion, and leadership development with LGBTQQ youth, their families, and allies of all races, classes, genders, and abilities.
A Circle of Healing in Oakland
Ateenage boy stands in juvenile court, shoulders tense. His crime wasn’t violence or dealing drugs, but hustling candy for pocket money, a desperate effort to help his struggling family weighed down by fractured relationships and substance abuse. Credible Messengers on staff at Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) met the boy while he was in custody and reached out to his family.
“RJOY offered some practical support for him and his family – food, gift cards, bus fare, and most importantly helping them transition from homelessness into a stable apartment,” says Teiahsha Bankhead, RJOY’s executive director. A year later, she’s proud to report that the boy is thriving: “He’s back in school, working, being responsible, analytical, and always wanting to lend a helping hand.” In her words, the
once-troubled teen is now “a shining star.”
This kind of transformation is RJOY’s mission in action. “People shouldn’t be defined by their worst day, or the worst act that they’ve ever committed,” says Bankhead, a licensed psychotherapist with a PhD from UC Berkeley who came to restorative justice through academia. Born in South Central Los Angeles to what she calls “a long history of racial justice activists,” she was raised with an acute sense of social equity.
In the years since Dr. Bankhead became executive director, RJOY has grown into a formidable force for good, expanding with the additions of two remarkable sanctuaries: a nine-unit apartment building for transitional housing and a 10-acre farm acting as a healing and wellness center. It’s a respite for low-income, marginalized, and under-
"W hat brings me joy is writing poetry, being outdoors, and spending time with people I care about. I’m committed to growth—my own and that of those around me—and always looking for ways to elevate, learn, and give back."
– Aaron Jackson Credible Messenger
represented people who don’t otherwise have access to those amenities.
On any given week, RJOY provides a number of services to those in need. There are twelve restorative healing circles each week, affinity gatherings where participants share food and stories.
“All of our circles have a full meal with them,” says Bankhead, so people are nourished with healthy food as they engage and connect. There are circles for queer and trans youth of color, for grieving mothers, for elders and youth together. All are guided by the principle that healing is a communal act.
In restorative justice, there are those who are harmed and those who have caused harm. RJOY serves both. “We try to find solutions that are high on accountability, but also high on support,” Bankhead explains.
Even the justice system puts their faith in the people at RJOY. Local public defenders and police regularly share the number for RJOY’s crisis line, a lifeline for those who fear calling 911.
This melding of mental health and practical support deliver a bold vision of safer streets, radical love, and a healed Oakland guided by restorative justice. For Oakland’s youth, it can mean the difference between a jail cell, or a promising future. “RJOY is an investment in a healed community,” says Bankhead. “It literally saves lives.”
Group staff photo from RJOY's 2023 Ubuntu Awards.
A Helping Hand For Those Living Among Poverty and Violence
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth’s (RJOY) work thrives on community support. Your contribution can help fund RJOY’s vital “Safe Outside the System” mobile urgent crisis warm line, which is no longer funded after federal cuts. This is a crucial service meeting a critical need for community members in imminent mental health and possible justice-involved crises.
RJOY’s mission is to increase mental health and wellness for underrepresented and BIPOC communities using restorative justice practices.
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) www.rjoyoakland.org (510) 931-7569 Contact: Teiahsha Bankhead Ph.D., LCSW Executive Director (510) 599-7774 Teiahsha@rjoyoakland.org
The Many Ways to Give...
At the Ubuntu Retreat & Healing Center, the Ubusha Youth Program plants a fruiting mulberry tree and pours libations to honor the ancestors.
Ubusha Youth Program holds a youth circle at Snow Park in Downtown Oakland across from Lake Merritt.
Ubusha Youth Program sit in circle at the Ubuntu Retreat Center.
The Next Generation Can Speak for Itself
Young people are on the frontlines, often literally, of the world’s cultural and political battles. But rarely given opportunities to voice their unique perspectives, young people often disengage and feel isolated and alone.
The people at Youth Speaks, founded in 1996 in San Francisco, have long understood these struggles. Sitting at the intersection of literary arts, narrative change, and youth development, Youth Speaks tackles these issues head-on by creating spaces that challenge young people – especially Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Pacific Islander, and those from working-class communities – to find, develop, and apply their voices as creators of societal change.
“Youth Speaks creates safe spaces where young people have the agency to declare their truth and turn those truths into plans of action,” says Hawah Kasat, Youth Speaks’ interim Executive Director. “The perspective that they bring as young people to societal issues, to their communities is often underestimated and overlooked. We see the power of these perspectives,
and the possibilities we can achieve if we honor the voices of youth.”
Youth Speaks has always been revolutionary: When they launched Brave New Voices in 1997, it was the nation’s first youth poetry slam, inspiring the creation of many other programs nationwide. Over the past 30 years, Youth Speaks has cultivated and sustained a national network of organizations where young people discover their power and their voice through storytelling, poetry, and civic engagement. “Youth Speaks’ presence in classrooms, assemblies, and out-ofschool writing workshops goes beyond poets sharing poems. This is where civic engagement, literary arts, and arts education intersect to empower a new generation of storytellers and culture keepers,” says Bijou McDaniel, Director of Digital Pedagogy and Communications at Youth Speaks.
Youth Speaks has a 30-year track record of breaking new ground: O ering trailblazing, resonant programs like their Writing Workshops, Under 21 Open Mic events, Teen Poetry Slam, and their flagship summer program, Brave
New Voices – now a premier four-day nationwide festival for youth, ages 13-19, that encompasses poetry and spoken word performances, workshops, and civic action – Youth Speaks provides a safe community where all are welcome and youth voices are valued.
Building on these decades of success, in 2024, Youth Speaks launched Power Lab, which brings together youth, organizers, industry experts, and community leaders to leverage the power of culture to influence policy, combat misinformation, and heal civic trauma. Through this work, they have successfully created campaigns that shape public life on issues including racial justice, public health, and climate change.
“For the youth in our programs, poetry is often just the starting point. It is the vehicle through which they discover, practice, and grow the power of their own voices,” says McDaniel. “When young people claim that power, when they are connected and supported through communities of care, there is no limit to the possibilities of what they can create.”
Team Bay Area claiming victory at the 2025 Brave New Voices National Youth Poetry Slam in Madison, WI.
Keeping Youth Engaged at a Pivotal Moment in History
• $100 Supports 20 students in the School Poet Programs
• $200 Underwrites one After School Writing Workshop
• $1,000 Provides ASL interpretation and closed captioning services for one public performance, creating accessible spaces for youth and their families
• $2,500 Supports a Youth Speaks assembly at a Title I partner school in the Bay Area
• $5,000 Supports youth-led summer conference focusing on art, community, and mental health
• $25,000 Facilitates an In-School Arts Education Residency for one year
• $50,000 Provides stipends for youth leaders in After School Programs, including weekly writing workshops for youth ages 13-19
We envision a world in which young people are heard, honored and connected through creative ecosystems of interdependence and care. “ “
KEY SUPPORTERS
Youth Speaks youthspeaks.org (415) 255-9035
Contact: Annie Jupiter-Jones Director of Grants & Foundations ajupiter-jones@youthspeaks.org
Barbara and Amos Hostetter Frances Hellman
Bijal Prikh
Michelle & Robert Friend Foundation
CA O ce of Community Partnerships & Strategic Communications
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and their Families
Acton Family Giving Crankstart Foundation
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
San Francisco Grants for the Arts
California Arts Council
The Many Ways to Give...
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 91-2134499 By Credit Card: youthspeaks.org/support
By Check: Youth Speaks, Inc.
NACA Radical Poets representing Albuquerque, NM, at the 2025 Brave New Voices Festival in Madison, WI.
Homelessness
“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
No Tenant Stands Alone
Tenants of the city's largest corporate landlord advocate for habitable living conditions, language justice for immigrant tenants, and an end to the systematic eviction of long-term tenants.
In the heart of San Francisco’s Bayview district, Diana had called the same house home for over two decades. But in 2024, the recently widowed senior in her 70s faced a nightmare scenario that has become all too common in the Bay Area: her rent skyrocketed from $2,100 to $3,000 overnight, her landlord started harassing her, and the ceiling literally collapsed on her.
Diana’s story could have ended in displacement – another casualty of the housing crisis that has gripped San Francisco for years. Instead, it became a testament to the power of organized tenant advocacy, thanks to the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco.
“Through this process, Diana gained confidence in advocating for her rights and began supporting her neighbors with similar housing issues,” explains Taylor Ovca, the organization’s development director. What started as one tenant seeking help has rippled out into community-wide empowerment.
Founded in 1979 by a group of seniors organizing through their church, the Housing Rights Committee has evolved into a sophisticated three-pronged operation that Executive Director Maria Ixchel Zamudio describes as addressing housing at every level: “providing direct
service to stabilize individuals, supporting tenants to advocate for their rights and dignity, and engaging in advocacy to pass and protect laws at the community level.”
This approach has yielded remarkable victories. In one of their most celebrated campaigns, tenants in San Francisco’s Mission District organized against corporate landlord Veritas, which had subjected them to repeated building code violations and illegal rent increases. The tenant-led rent strike ultimately forced the sale of the building to a community land trust, securing longterm a ordability for the majority Spanish-speaking residents.
“The goal is to transform housing from a commodified financial product to a human right,” says Zamudio, who has been leading tenants’ rights work for over 12 years. Her vision connects local organizing to nationwide housing justice movements.
The organization’s most innovative program may be their tenant leadership fellowship, which o ers six-month paid fellowships for emerging community leaders. This investment in human capital multiplies their impact exponentially – trained tenant leaders become organizers in their own buildings and neighborhoods.
“T he Fund for an Inclusive California has been proud to support the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco. This organization is a critical force to preserve this city as a home for immigrants. Through HRCSF, immigrant tenants strengthen a collective voice to stand up to astronomical rent increases and absentee, negligent landlords. HRCSF keeps communities in their homes and neighborhoods.”
– Catherine Eusebio
Program Strategist, Fund for an Inclusive California
“Our organizing branch has the ability to help individuals and make transformative community changes,” notes Ovca. The fellowship program represents their commitment to upstream solutions that prevent housing crises before they occur.
Zamudio emphasizes that much of their most crucial work “often goes unseen but is crucial in preventing crises.” She points to recent decreases in California homelessness as evidence that tenant protections and organizing efforts, and the dedicated work of those at the Housing Rights Committee of SF, are making a measurable difference.
Building Tenant Advocacy
The Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco is focused on fundraising for their fellowship program. Recent city budget cuts have threatened programs like the tenant leadership fellowship program, making private donations more critical than ever.
A donation of $18,000 funds a six-month paid fellowship and leadership development opportunity for a low-income tenant to expand the group’s capacity to organize in the community. This work is an essential tool in the group’s mission to stop the displacement and cycle of economic insecurity that Black, Latine, Immigrant, and low-income tenants face in San Francisco, and make sure that every person, like Diana, has a safe roof over their head and the ability to advocate for themselves.
San Francisco’s Black residents have been hit hard by the displacement crisis, with an alarming 53% drop in the city’s Black population from 1970 to 2024. Many of the remaining Black residents live in subsidized housing, making them particularly vulnerable to redevelopment and gentrification.
At the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, we combine direct tenant support with grassroots organizing and advocacy to build tenant power across the city and beyond. Our tenant counseling services provide the tools and knowledge tenants need to assert their rights, while our organizing work helps tenants unite to defend their homes and communities. In addition, we advocate for policies that protect tenants and work in coalitions to shift housing narratives and laws on a larger scale. Whether through one-on-one support, collective organizing, or broad advocacy, our mission is to ensure that no tenant faces housing challenges alone.
The Many Ways to Give...
Health & Wellness
“The greatest wealth is health.”
– Virgil
From Food Apartheid to Delicious Abundance: Building a Just Food System, Together
In West Oakland – an area with deep roots in Black art, food, and community – access to fresh foods and economic opportunities were deliberately withheld through decades of redlining and disinvestment. For 21 years, Mandela Partners has worked alongside Black and Brown communities to change this legacy. They collaborate with residents, farmers, food entrepreneurs, and organizers to strengthen the work already in motion, and create a just and abundant food system in Oakland and the Bay Area.
Each year, Mandela reaches more than 10,000 community members through:
– Distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms to local families
– Wellness programming that goes beyond nutritional health and supports holistic well-being
– Paid culinary training and internships for community members facing barriers to employment
– Workshops, mentorship, and direct capital for new and upcoming food entrepreneurs.
“We’re not just addressing food access,” explains Chuck Brown, Fund Development Director at Mandela Partners. “We’re creating economic self-determination for communities.” As both an entrepreneur himself and someone passionate about creating opportunities for others, he understands the unique challenges facing food entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds.
Mandela Partners started supporting food entrepreneurs in 2013; since then, they’ve supported over 250 earlystage entrepreneurs to launch and grow small businesses through their Food Business Pathways program, which gives entrepreneurs the knowledge, resources, and network they need to succeed. The majority of these entrepreneurs are Black women and women of color. Some are immigrants, some come from families who have been in the Bay for generations, all of them creating individual and community wealth by starting up food businesses.
One of Mandela’s most successful projects is East 14th Eatery + Kitchen, a food hall that serves as both an incubator
for their entrepreneurs and a community gathering space. Here, three incubated entrepreneurs operate food kiosks in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, supported by Mandela Partners’ sweeping programming that includes workshops, coaching, practical support like covering vending site fees and providing kitchen space and equipment, and direct financial support through seed funding.
Success stories abound. Diana Ramirez successfully ran a kiosk at E14th Eatery + Kitchen for four years before opening her own brick-and-mortar restaurant in Unincorporated Alameda County, Yoyo’s Botaneria.
“She is now becoming an anchor of economic revitalization in that community,” notes Brown. The ripple effects are visible – the neighborhood’s first new supermarket in years opened across the street from Yoyo’s, and another new café is opening nearby. “What Diana has made possible is the dream we have for every entrepreneur we get the opportunity to work with.”
"So proud to serve not just our community, but also to support the power of food to transform lives. I’m honored to sit on the board of Mandela Partners, a Bay Area nonprofit dedicated to building local food equity and economic opportunity. What inspires me most is the way Mandela Partners doesn’t just talk about food justice — they live it, by supporting small farmers, uplifting entrepreneurs of color, and ensuring access to healthy food in communities that need it most. Their work creates pathways for dignity, opportunity, and health through something as universal as food. I back Mandela Partners because they’re building a more just and connected food system, one that reflects the values of care, culture, and community."
– Daniel Aderaw Yeshiwas Board Member and GM of Brundo Spice Company and Café Colucci
Members of the Mandela Partners team (far right) celebrating with graduates from the Spring 2025 cohort of the Food Business Pathways program, outside of the E14th Eatery + Kitchen located in Ashland, California.
Fund the Future: Empower Food Entrepreneurs
Your support will help Mandela Partners reach their $100,000 funding goal for their Food Business Program, which trains, supports, and empowers 50 food entrepreneurs each year. These entrepreneurs are the backbones of their neighborhoods, and your support will create sustainable economic opportunities that strengthen entire communities. Every donation has a huge impact, especially as food-based funding is being cut from the federal level down. A $500 donation covers seed funding for an entrepreneur going through the Food Business Pathways program. A $5,000 donation covers their funding for both the program and one-on-one coaching. A $25,000 donation covers one full year of operating a kiosk at the E14th Eatery + Kitchen.
Mandela Partners is a nonprofit organization that works in partnership with local residents, family farmers, and community-based businesses to improve health, create wealth, and build assets through local food enterprises in limited-resource communities.
“Contraceptives are one of the greatest anti-poverty innovations the world has ever known.”
– Melinda French Gates
In Sierra Leone, a struggling mother of two named Christiana sought an abortion from the only source she knew. Untrained, the man perforated her uterus and she left bleeding and in pain. At home, her condition worsened. Remembering an ad for MSI Reproductive Choices, Christiana found her way to the center. The certified doctors at MSI helped her with life-saving care and contraceptives to prevent future pregnancies. Christiana survived, but many young girls and women aren’t as lucky. Safe, quality reproductive healthcare is out of reach.
“People care about the world’s women and girls, but don’t realize that access to reproductive healthcare is needed to save lives,” says Lucy Valentine Wurtz, MSI’s West Coast Director of Philanthropy. MSI is one of the world’s largest providers of contraception, safe abortions, and maternity care, serving 94,000 women like Christiana every day.
MSI is devoted to providing access to quality care in 36 countries. They focus on women living in poverty, as well as adolescents and women living in remote areas of Africa and Asia. They provide services through facilities in urban centers,
partnerships with public and private health workers, their own brands of contraception, and hundreds of outreach teams that travel to communities beyond the road’s end. In fact, MSI outreach teams are famous for climbing mountains, fording rivers, and traveling for days to reach into remote pockets where other healthcare providers never go. Without MSI, the women in these tiny villages would not have this vital care.
“We approach the challenge of reproductive healthcare access from many di erent angles to achieve our goals to end unsafe abortion and make contraception available to every woman who wants it,” says Wurtz.
For 257 million women worldwide, choice is impossible. They cannot access their chosen contraception. The ramifications can be staggering. In most of the countries where MSI works, pregnancy related causes kill more young women than anything else.
There are other implications, too. In sub-Saharan Africa, four million teenage girls are forced out of school every year because of pregnancy, says Wurtz. Fewer than 5% will go back. This starts a cycle of poverty that is di cult to escape. The e ects are generational and tragic when you consider how inexpensive it is to provide a girl with contraception.
“Access to life-saving reproductive care is not that complex,” says Wurtz. “We have the solution and it’s scalable. We just need the funding.”
MSI's blue doors are a recognized symbol of safe, quality reproductive healthcare for millions of women worldwide. Lilian Omburo welcomes clients to the MSI center in Kangemi, Nairobi, Kenya. October 2023.
Ifeoma Onyekachi, an MSI outreach team leader, is one of the hundreds of outreach team members who travel beyond the road's end to bring contraception and counseling sessions to women who often have no other options for reproductive healthcare. Ogbala, Ebonyi, Nigeria. May 2025.
After USAID Cuts, MSI Remains a Lifesaver
MSIis raising money now for their Choice Emergency Fund, to make up for cuts in foreign health aid made by the current administration. $600 million for reproductive health funding promised to dozens of organizations was cut. MSI relies less on the U.S. government than some organizations and is standing strong, but needs to replace $20 million in promised funds. They welcome donations of all sizes towards attaining this goal.
MSI is e cient with their dollars: your gift of $5,000 provides a year of contraception for more than 750 vulnerable young women; $10,000 would serve more than 1,500. That’s tremendous impact and one of the reasons MSI United States, the U.S. 501(c)3 supporting MSI Reproductive Choices, has high scores with Charity Navigator and Candid. Please donate.
MSI
to expand access to reproductive healthcare with a focus on reaching
MSI United States msiunitedstates.org
P.O. Box 35528
Washington, D.C. 20033 (202) 601-2825
Contact: Lucy Valentine Wurtz, CFRE Director of Philanthropy, West Coast (650) 303-4126
Lucy.Wurtz@msichoices.org
KEY SUPPORTERS
Bayer Foundation
Erik E. & Edith H. Bergstrom Foundation
Cartier Philanthropy
Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) Foundation for a Just Society International
The Gates Foundation
Levi Strauss Foundation
Open Society Foundations
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Vitol Foundation
WestWind Foundation
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
MSI Reproductive Choices aims to end unsafe abortion and make contraception available to every woman who wants it. “ “
The Many Ways to Give...
By Check: MSI United States P.O. Box 35528 Washington, D.C. 20033 (202) 601-2825
By DAF: Tax ID# 54-1901882 By Credit Card & More: msiunitedstates.org
works
adolescents, so girls like Zinabuwa Tamirat have a better chance at staying in school and choosing their own futures. Tadisa health post in Wolayita, Ethiopia. April 2025.
One Simple Act of Kindness Warms a Nation
In the fall of 1992, Lois Pavlow was seeking a solution. Living in San Francisco, she had an extra coat she no longer needed and wanted to give it to someone who could use the warmth. But as Executive Vice President Patti Zappa explains, “She could not find anywhere to donate it.”
What happened next would eventually provide warmth to nearly nine million people across America. Unable to find an organization to accept her coat, Pavlow did what San Franciscans do best – she mobilized. She organized a coat drive the weekend after Thanksgiving in Union Square. For seven years, it remained a local once-ayear San Francisco tradition.
Then in 2001, everything changed when Sherri Wood heard something on her car radio that would transform a local weekend coat drive into a national movement.
Sitting in traffic, Wood heard a story about a woman carrying 10 coats, rushing to Union Square before the
coat drive ended. “Sherri heard this and thought, why is this just a one weekend event? We should be doing this all the time. People should be able to donate coats at any time of year,” recalls Zappa.
That moment of inspiration led Wood to approach Pavlow with a vision that would redefine how America thinks about coat donations. Today, One Warm Coat is a thriving national nonprofit organization supporting more than 4,000 coat drives each year and partnering with over 1,500 local nonprofits who distribute the coats to people in need.
The genius of their model lies in its simplicity and sustainability. “We’ve been virtual for 33 years now,” says President & CEO Beth Amodio. Without overhead for buildings, utilities, or warehouses, “93 cents of every dollar goes towards programs.”
This approach has yielded remarkable results: nearly 60,000 coat drives since 1992, almost nine million coats
distributed, and 22 million pounds of clothing diverted from landfills. In addition to their national Coat Drive Program, One Warm Coat’s Zero Waste Initiative provides a solution for retailers and manufacturers with overstock or irregular outerwear items they need to o oad. Those items are matched with nonprofit partners in One Warm Coat’s extensive network.
Back in the Bay Area, where it all began, One Warm Coat maintains strong roots with 58 nonprofit partners and a 23-year relationship with KTVU Fox 2. They celebrated their 30th anniversary with a gathering in Union Square, where Wood was honored and able to witness how far her simple question – “why not everywhere?” – has traveled.
“One person can make such a big di erence,” reflects Amodio. In a world that often feels disconnected, One Warm Coat proves that the simplest act of kindness – sharing a coat you no longer need – can ripple outward to warm millions.
One Warm Coat's mission is to provide free coats to children and adults in need while promoting volunteerism and environmental sustainability.
the past 33 years,
Share the Warmth
Every dollar donated to One Warm Coat warms one person through their Coat Drive Program. A $5,000 donation provides warmth to 5,000 people while also supporting volunteerism and environmental sustainability.
National Reach. Local Impact. Giving money isn’t the only way to help. Clean out your closets and donate gently worn coats, or give your time and energy to organize a coat drive in your community. One Warm Coat provides free resources, guidance, and even “pep talks” to help volunteers of any age create meaningful impact in their own neighborhoods.
“
One Warm Coat's mission is to provide free coats to children and adults in need while promoting volunteerism and environmental sustainability.
“
Over
One Warm Coat has distributed nearly 9 million coats through a network of 1,500 local nonprofit partners, keeping more than 22 million pounds of textiles out of landfills.
Founded in 1992 by one woman with one coat to give, One Warm Coat is a national nonprofit organization that originated with one simple act of kindness.
The Power of Inclusion
On a weekday morning in Milpitas, a woman stocks produce at Safeway, greeting customers by name. This simple scene is the culmination of decades of support. She came to AbilityPath as a shy camper with a developmental disability; years later, she’s a confident 15-year employee, living in her own apartment, nurturing her love of dance in a weekly class, and volunteering in her community.
AbilityPath, a Bay Area nonprofit, has spent more than a century building a world where everyone belongs. Founded in 1920 by dedicated parents who wanted greater opportunities for their children, they established an organization that embraced inclusion generations before it was common. Today, over 1,000 children and adults with developmental disabilities are served daily. CEO Bryan Neider emphasizes, “I firmly believe that AbilityPath’s greatest asset is our comprehensive lifespan of services, which guides and supports individuals and families throughout every stage of their journey.” Some participants have been with AbilityPath for 50 years or more through programs that include: early intervention children’s therapy, inclusive preschools, afterschool social-recreational programs, employment training and independent living, and senior enrichment.
The sense of community and belonging can be as crucial as the services themselves. One longtime supporter recalls the birth of her daughter with Down syndrome. Friends and even hospital sta didn’t know what to say; no one thought to celebrate. At AbilityPath, it was di erent. It was the first time she heard, “Congratulations, your baby’s beautiful.”
AbilityPath’s innovative and supportive programs change lives. A toddler with autism gains the tools and confidence to express herself and ease frustrations through speech therapy. Her mom finds invaluable training and resources that help her feel supported and grow as a parent. “Our time here at AbilityPath has changed the trajectory of my daughter’s life when she needed it most,” she reflects. On the other end of the age spectrum, an adult hones his job skills – practicing interviews, learning to ride the bus, and how to clock in on time – joining nearly 300 others in meaningful employment.
confidence
AbilityPath is a recognized leader in its field, o ering extensive, nimble support services. Programs are shaped by the evolving needs and interests of the people served, while the organization remains committed to e ciency, innovation, and impactful outcomes. Leveraging technology helps them expand their reach and better support families. In therapy sessions, an AI assistant takes notes, saving clinicians time to see more children. In employment services, tools support sta in addressing on-the-job challenges. A multilingual chatbot helps families explore preschool enrollment.
Ultimately, AbilityPath’s measure of success lies in the human connections it fosters. “We are uniquely positioned to be a force for good by doing what we do best: fostering belonging and building inclusive communities,” says Neider. The organization is a multigenerational tapestry – children once in therapy services now thriving as adults. “This is a very personal relationship,” Neider says. “We’re here to help people live out their dreams.”
“AbilityPath holds a special place in our hearts. Our daughter began her journey here with early intervention services 22 years ago, and we’ve seen the profound, lasting impact of these programs. As board members, event chairs, sponsors, and monthly donors, we’re proud to invest in an organization that transforms lives every day. We are grateful for AbilityPath and the community’s support in ensuring children and adults with developmental disabilities enjoy a lifetime of opportunities and inclusion."
–Shannon
and Je Fallick Donors, Advocates, Volunteers, Clients
From cooking a meal to preparing for a job interview, AbilityPath helps people with developmental disabilities build the
and skills needed for greater independence. Through partnerships with more than 100 local businesses, nearly 300 adults are employed in the community.
Creating a World Where Everyone Belongs
Your generosity can sustain this inclusive legacy for children and adults with developmental disabilities. Here’s what your gift can do:
• $250 – Provide a child with a one-hour speech or occupational therapy session.
• $500 – Fund inclusive preschool supplies and programs.
• $1,000 – Support a month of independent living coaching.
• $2,500 – Deliver comprehensive job training and employment in the community.
Our Learning Links inclusive preschools bring together children with and without disabilities, fostering friendships, kindness, and a lifelong love of learning. In our classrooms, diversity is celebrated, every child’s potential is nurtured, and families feel a true sense of belonging.
Every year, 500 children receive more than 25,000 hours of speech therapy, occupational therapy, and early intervention services to support their development and reduce the need for greater support later in life.
AbilityPath abilitypath.org Contact: Kim Malhotra Vice President of Marketing & Development (650) 201-9596 kmalhotra@abilitypath.org
Celebrating neurodiversity and empowering individuals with developmental disabilities through innovative, inclusive programs and community partnerships.
“ “
AbilityPath creates spaces where every adult is valued, every voice is heard, and belonging is at the heart of it all. Over 800 adults are supported to achieve their individualized goals in health, recreation, continuing education, independent living, and employment.
KEY SUPPORTERS
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Community Fund
Elaine Cohen, EdD and George Cohen, MD
Heidi Feldman, MD, PhD and Jay McClelland
Edie and Je Fisher
Sharon and Joel Friedman
Hearst Foundation
Mary Hughes and Joe Simitian
Former Santa Clara County Supervisor
Laurie Jarrett
Sara and James Jungroth
Chris Kenrick
Linda Leao
Carole Middleton
Palo Alto Community Fund
Rachel and Simon Segars
Sobrato Family Foundation
Jackie Speier, San Mateo County Supervisor and Former Congresswoman
Jennifer Wagsta Hinton and John Hinton
Patty and Jim White
The Many Ways to Give...
By Check: AbilityPath 350 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 123 Redwood City, CA 94065
By DAF or Stock Transfer: Tax ID# 94-1156502
By Credit Card: abilitypath.org
Emergency Services
“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”
– John Wayne
Conversations: Amy Weaver
as told to Steven Libowitz
Putting Purpose to Work
As Direct Relief’s new CEO, Amy Weaver leads a global humanitarian organization with deep roots in Montecito, where it was founded in 1948. Today, Direct Relief delivers nearly $2 billion annually in medical aid and financial assistance to people facing poverty and disasters worldwide. Praised for running with the efficiency of a leading corporation, the nonprofit consistently ranks among the nation’s top five charities in the United States, according to Forbes. With Weaver taking over the reins in May 2025, Direct Relief is now being run by someone with significant experience in the corporate world.
A Washington State native, Weaver began her career following in her family’s footsteps in the legal profession, working in private practice then as an attorney for a pair of Fortune 500 companies (Expedia, Univar) before rising to chief legal officer at cloud-based software giant Salesforce. She then made the unprecedented move to president and chief financial officer, the first such tran-
sition in a Fortune 500 company, and a top one at that, as Salesforce sits barely outside the Top 100 and is one of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average companies, having replaced Exxon Mobil in the index in 2020.
Weaver helped guide Salesforce through a period of tremendous growth and transformation to where it posts revenues just shy of $40 billion per year. Now, she’s reached another landmark, as likely the first Fortune 500 CFO to transition from the corporate C-suite to head a humanitarian nonprofit.
Steven Libowitz: How did you decide to move from the corporate world of Silicon Valley into running a humanitarian nonprofit? What made you want to make that leap?
Amy Weaver: From the outside it may look like a sharp jump, but for me it feels like a very natural next step. Service has always been woven into my life. My parents were both constant volunteers, and some of my earliest memories are of tagging along on community
projects or civic campaigns. That example shaped me. At Salesforce, one of the things that most attracted me was their policy of giving every employee seven days of paid volunteer time each year. I took full advantage of that. My most meaningful connection was with Habitat for Humanity International, where I served on the board for four years and joined builds in Poland, Kenya, Puerto Rico, and across the U.S. My whole family became part of it. So when the opportunity came to devote myself full time to humanitarian work, it didn’t feel like a leap – it felt like a continuation of what has mattered most to me.
SL: How does the early installation of justice and fairness coming from a family of lawyers who gave back still show up in your philosophy?
AW: For me, it’s less about the word “justice,” which can sound abstract, and more about basic fairness. I saw that clearly last summer in Uganda, spending time in pediatric oncology wards. The contrast in cancer outcomes between the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa is devastating. There’s no way to explain to a child why one receives medicine and another doesn’t – even a five-year-old would recognize the unfairness. Walking through those wards, what kept going through my mind was simple: we can do better, and we must. That sense of fairness, of ensuring people have access to the same chance at health
and life, is at the heart of Direct Relief’s mission.
SL: What is an example of an early experience as an adult giving or receiving support that made a big difference in your life or career?
AW: Early in my career, I hit a stretch when nothing at work was going right and my perspective turned pretty negative. At the same time, I started volunteering once a week at our local food bank. It completely reframed how I saw things. The sense of community – donors, volunteers, families who came in for food – reminded me of what really matters. And every week I walked out feeling lighter, as if my own problems had been put back into proportion. That experience taught me that volunteering isn’t only about what you give; it’s about what you gain. My family and I have received so much from service –perspective, gratitude, and connection. In many ways, we’re the beneficiaries.
SL: Salesforce is known as a very philanthropically involved organization. Can you share what that looked like from your perspective?
AW: Their charitable model is amazing. Right from when it was founded,
they set up the Salesforce Foundation, with the commitment that 1% of the equity, 1% of the product and 1% of employee time would always go to charitable causes. It wasn’t worth much at the time, but as of now, more than three-quarters of a billion dollars has been given away, and employee volunteer time recently passed the 10 million hour mark. They still allow nonprofits to use their product for up to 10 users completely free, and then beyond that at a discounted rate. Almost 70,000 nonprofits are running on their platform at this point… It’s also very influential to attracting talent because most people care about giving back. As an executive there, I always encouraged my teams to step up and complete those volunteer hours every year.
SL: How do you think other companies can model something similar, making philanthropy part of the culture?
AW: Start as early as possible. You can start small, but you have to start. It’s extremely challenging to reset the organization once you’re already established and public. Salesforce built it into the DNA from Day 1, so it was able to scale as it grew. But on the other hand, it’s never too late. You may not be able to come up with a new financial model, but can immediately implement three or four days a year of volunteer time off. You can look for ways that you can use your product to enhance nonprofits, which costs you almost nothing. There are models that can work with every single organization.
SL: As someone who led at the highest level of a corporation, been involved in nonprofit boards, and now runs one of the largest nonprofits in the humanitarian sector, how has your perspective on philanthropy evolved over time? Or perhaps, what can nonprofits learn from the corporate world?
AW: I’ve found the learning goes both ways. Some of the best practices I brought into Salesforce came from my time with Habitat for Humanity. And in turn, the corporate world taught me a lot about the power of transparency – proxy statements, SEC filings, investor reports – all of which force accountability and fuel improvement. Nonprofits don’t always have the same forced discipline, but I think they should. At the end of the day, whether in business or in humanitarian work, the fundamentals are the same: strategic focus, financial responsibility, operational excellence, innovation, and above all, trust. What changes is the purpose. Here, those same skills are deployed in service of people who are sick, displaced, or left behind. That’s what makes it both motivating and humbling. I often walk through our warehouse, passing the pallets of medicines and supplies bound for clinics around the world. I touch them as a reminder: every shipment represents lives depending on us. That’s a responsibility I carry with both honor and urgency.
SL: What is the role of philanthropy in building community?
“Going out of your way to support someone else is truly the definition of a community. You’re coming together because you believe that there’s something better and that people acting together can build something that is better than you can do individually.”
government support or other factors with the economy, or if they’re not, then like Direct Relief they’re in a position to step up and do more. In either case, what they need is funding. So if people have been holding back, if they’re waiting for the right time to make a commitment, to make a gift, to really try to make a difference, the time is now.
The recent changes have been a tsunami going through the development world. I believe if you are in a position to do more – like we are at Direct Relief – you really have an obligation to do so. This is the moment. It’s the moment for donors, it’s the moment for nonprofits. It’s the moment for everyone to really step up.
SL: Before joining Direct Relief, how did you choose which nonprofits or causes to support?
AW: I would love to say that they’re always very well thought out decisions. But often it was something that just caught my eye and touched my heart. But in general, my husband and I always look at where we can make the most impact – whether it’s helping a small handful of people in a substantial way that will change their lives, or something that is going to have a much broader and wider impact on more people by leveraging expertise and context.
AW: Going out of your way to support someone else is truly the definition of a community. You’re coming together because you believe that there’s something better and that people acting together can build something that is better than you can do individually. It also breaks down barriers. We live in a very divisive society right now, and yet you can find people who come together around common goals when it comes to philanthropy. The more things we can look to that bring people together towards a single goal, the better off we’re going to be.
SL: Speaking of divisive times, there’s been a massive cutback in governmental support, especially internationally. Do you see that as an opportunity or even responsibility for private philanthropists to step up to try to fill that void?
AW: Let’s put it this way: if people have been waiting to know when they could have the most influence with their donation, the answer is now. Organizations are either facing incredible cuts, whether it’s from a lack of
Either way, I think about something I heard as a student at Wellesley from William Saltonstall who told us that the most important advice he could give us about philanthropy was to always give to a general fund or unrestricted donations. He said, whoever you’re giving it to, they know better than you where it’s needed.
SL: Any final thoughts on wealth, philanthropy, and giving back?
AW: I believe the saddest thing anyone could say at the end of their life is that they wasted their potential. The opposite is to be able to say: I used what I had –my gifts, my resources, my time – to make my family, my community, and the world better. That’s the legacy I hope for. It’s not enough to do your job well; you have to ask yourself, did I do all I could with what I was given? That’s the measure I want to hold myself and Direct Relief to.
“I Could Not Ask for a Better Partner”
In the rolling hills outside Santa Paula, California, a stirring ceremony is afoot. Four young first responders from Oklahoma Task Force One and their canine partners will be formally paired today – effectively for life. Each in his turn, the soft-spoken young men in uniform tell their stories, the small outdoor amphitheater ringing with birdsong. As they speak, their four-legged partners in rescue gaze on them with the unfiltered love for which dogs are known.
These young Oklahomans are signing on 30 years after the Oklahoma City bombing that essentially launched the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation’s mission. The stakes remain high. These paired teams will not be searching for the dead, but for the living. CEO Rhett Mauck offers a benediction. “To these handlers, we say thank you for your dedication to your canine partners – and for the journey that lies ahead.”
In 1996 a woman named Wilma Melville launched the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF), having been stunned the prior year at the shortfall of handlers and rescue dogs desperately seeking survivors in the smoldering rubble of the blasted Alfred P. Murrah Federal
“TBuilding in Oklahoma City.
These years later, evolving SDF training is arduous and exacting, the expansive training compound an outdoor menagerie of collapsed buildings and crushed cars. SDF’s canine candidates arrive already familiar with the rescue theme – SDF’s dogs are themselves rescues from shelters. However they fare in SDF’s training and mission, they
will find homes. SDF’s Lifetime Care Commitment guarantees it.
he Search Dog Foundation has consistently provided highly trained canine disaster search teams in support of the Bay Area and our operations with the San Francisco Fire Department and California Task Force 3. These canines serve as an indispensable resource in our urban search and rescue efforts. Whether deployed in response to earthquakes, hurricanes, mudslides, or missing persons incidents, their capabilities significantly enhance the effectiveness of our missions. We are sincerely grateful to the Search Dog Foundation for supplying these exceptional teams at no cost, thereby strengthening our readiness and ensuring we remain fully equipped to serve the community whenever the need arises.”
–Chief Dean Crispen San Francisco Fire Department
The bond between dog and handler is mission critical. “It’s about connection over compliance,” explains Denise Sanders, senior director of communications and search team operations. “It’s about making sure they’re connected with their handler, that they are doing the work together. In a large-scale disaster,” says Sanders, “there’s so much ground to cover. So to be able to trust that dog to say, we can move on, this area is clear; that’s everything.”
From Maui to Los Angeles to Texas to Turkey, through fires, floods, and quakes, SDF’s work never pauses. From the day of a dog’s arrival on campus, SDF spends approximately $75,000 to train a search dog and handler over 10 to 12 months – professional, certified training that comes at no cost to the emergency departments nationwide who are SDF’s beneficiaries. “We’re 100% funded by private donations,” Sanders says. “We don’t accept government funding, only individual and foundation donations.” And though the nature of disaster itself is dynamic, SDF teams are on the case.
“They leave here,” Sanders says, “prepared for all scenarios, ready for anything. These teams have that relationship in place where it needs to be.”
From rescued to rescuer: Disaster search dogs are trained to find the strongest scent source of their target odor, barking to alert their handler that a missing person is buried beneath the surface of the rubble.
Sponsor the Canine Heroes
The frequency and strength of recent disasters are stark reminders that they can strike at the heart of any community. In the search for victims, a search dog’s remarkable nose and hard-earned skills mean the difference between days versus minutes, lost versus found, uncertainty versus hope. The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) works diligently to ensure canine search teams across America can deploy at a moment’s notice when needed, which includes preparing the next generation of canine heroes.
From the day they arrive on campus to the day they are paired with first responders, SDF spends approximately $75,000 to train a search dog over 10 to 12 months.
SDF is raising $975,000 to train the next search dog graduates. Donors at $20,000 and above can become sponsors of a search dog in training, receiving updates on their progress and milestones throughout their career. Sponsor one or even a pack of canine heroes to be Part of the Search!
Search dogs and their handlers train together weekly to stay ready in case of deployment. The Search Dog Foundation campus contains disaster training props that help prepare them for any disaster scenario they may face on deployment.
The mission of the Search Dog Foundation is to strengthen disaster response in America by rescuing and recruiting dogs and partnering them with firefighters and other first responders to find people buried alive in the wreckage of disasters.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
George Leis, Chair, Executive Vice President & Market President, CalPrivate Bank
Richard Butt, Vice-Chair, Retired EVP, Executive Creative Director, VMLY&R
For nearly 80 years, Direct Relief has stood ready to meet the cascading challenges of global disasters, delivering life-saving medicines, supplies, and funding to people in dire need in more than 100 countries. From its modest 1948 beginnings in a Montecito home, the nonprofit has become one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid organizations, navigating the toughest environments worldwide. From rushing cystic fibrosis medicines into war-torn Ukraine to routing cholera kits through shuttered ports in Haiti, Direct Relief has also never lost sight of its local roots, continuing to respond to emergencies here at home.
Its history of response to California wildfires stretches back decades, from the 1964 Coyote Canyon Fire to the 1990 Painted Cave Fire, when the organization coordinated around the clock with hospitals and clinics to deliver burn creams, sterile dressings, and critical medicines within hours. Today, California’s wildfire seasons are longer, hotter, and more destructive than ever, testing the communities in their path and entire regions with smoke, power grid failures, and surges in respiratory illnesses. In response, Direct Relief has scaled its support to meet this reality across the state.
After the 2017 Thomas Fire, the organization distributed thousands of N95 masks, emergency medicines, and financial aid to impacted clinics. During the 2018 Camp Fire, California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire, it shipped urgently requested medicines and provided targeted grant funding to clinics across Northern California. And in the first
“Dsix months following the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, Direct Relief has delivered $12.7 million in medical and financial assistance, including 140,000+ N95 respirators, trauma counseling for students returning to school, rental support for displaced families, and funding to keep safety-net clinics operating under extreme strain.
“Every wildfire creates its own public health emergency,” says Dean Axelrod, Direct Relief’s vice president of partnerships and philanthropy. “People lose their homes, but they also lose access to medicines, safe air, power, and medical care. Direct Relief’s goal is to close those gaps fast so clinics can stay open, patients can access necessary medicines, and families have what they need to recover.”
Direct Relief’s wildfire response goes beyond reacting. The organization now pre-positions critical medicines and medical supplies across California so healthcare providers can continue caring for their patients and communities when wildfires strike, clinics are equipped with solar-and-battery microgrids to safeguard refrigerated medicines, and facilities are kept open.
Direct Relief remains headquartered in Santa Barbara, just miles from the Montecito pantry where it began. But its work in California carries lessons and innovations that serve communities worldwide, shaping its ability to respond to complex emergencies with speed, precision, and trust.
irect Relief’s grant enabled AltaMed to respond quickly during the Eaton Fire, providing evacuees with urgent medical care, behavioral health support, and essential supplies. By strengthening our readiness and supporting mobile services at the Pasadena Convention Center, Direct Relief helped us care for displaced patients, community members, and sta . This partnership not only amplified our immediate response but also reinforced long-term recovery and resilience, ensuring compassion translated into action when it mattered most.”
– Sharlene Risdon-Jackson Vice President, AltaMed Foundation
Maximizing Impact
Nearly every cent donated to Direct Relief goes directly to delivering aid. None is used for fundraising, which is fully covered by a generous bequest.
By leveraging in-kind donations of medicines and supplies, the organization amplifies each donor dollar’s impact, delivering more aid than cash alone could achieve. Direct Relief’s 100% fundraising e ciency ratings from Forbes and Charity Navigator testify to its accountability.
Direct Relief was also the first U.S.based organization to ever receive the 2025 Seoul Peace Prize – one of the world’s most prestigious honors for humanitarian achievement – for its unwavering commitment to delivering lifesaving medical aid in disasters, conflict zones, and underserved communities.
Direct Relief
www.directrelief.org (805) 964-4767
Direct Relief is a humanitarian aid organization, active in all 50 states and more than 80 countries, with a mission to improve the health and lives of people a ected by poverty or disasters by mobilizing and providing essential medical resources needed for their care.
KEY SUPPORTERS
Emma Carrasco
Adam Cooper & Melissa Fleisher
Mary M. Dwyer
Henrietta Holsman Fore & Richard Fore
Heitham Hassoun
Mark & Kim Linehan
Jay McGonigle
Harry & Jacqueline McMahon
Annalisa Pizzarello & Robert Conway
Marla Salmon
Mark & Lynda Schwartz
Perry Siatis
Laurie Siegel & Joseph Nosofsky
Tom Strickland
Thomas & Heather Sturgess
Elizabeth A. Toro & Mark Hauser
The Many Ways to Give...
Contact: Dean Axelrod Vice President, Partnerships & Philanthropy (805) 879-4932
