Community Leadership
San Francisco has nearly 2,500 grant-making foundations with collectively over $45 billion in assets. The number of foundations in San Francisco and the Bay Area continues to grow, along with overall assets and giving. Indicative of the City's dynamic future and commitment to social giving, its philanthropic sector is characterized as "youthful" by The Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy at The University of Southern California. Only 28% of the existing foundations pre-date 1990. There are over 230 Bay Area grants of $1 million or more, and a total of $3.1 billion given. Education, the environment and arts, and culture organizations receive the most funding.
Corporate philanthropy rates are very high in the Bay Area. The sixty largest corporate donors gave over $165 million in 2009. In addition, 28 companies gave over $1 million dollars in cash. That year Wells Fargo & Co. was the largest Bay Area corporate giver, contributing nearly $22 million to Bay Area-based charities. Wells Fargo was followed by AT&T, Chevron Corporation, Safeway Inc., and Bank of America Corporation. In addition, locally-based companies such as PG&E Corp., Intel Corp., Cisco Systems, Applied Materials Inc., Genentech Inc., Oracle Corp., Gap, Inc. Citi, Adobe Systems Inc., and Microsoft Corp. are all substantial givers.
For more information, please visit the Foundation Center.