San Francisco, Calif. – The San Francisco Foundation announced that it has received an unrestricted general support grant for $7.5 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation – the largest grant from a private foundation in the San Francisco Foundation’s history.
In making the grant, Hewlett Foundation president Larry Kramer highlighted the San Francisco Foundation’s commitment to addressing the Bay Area’s housing crisis and its efforts to bring diverse groups together. He noted, “We are delighted to provide this grant to the San Francisco Foundation to enable them to do the important work of building coalitions, bringing communities together, and making progress against the Bay Area’s biggest challenges. That includes working with a diverse range of allies on the housing crisis, which threatens the vitality and future of our region.”
To that end, the San Francisco Foundation has sought to combine the various tools at its disposal – its donor community as well as grantmaking, advocacy, and community organizing – to advance racial equity and economic inclusion in the San Francisco Bay Area. In particular, in the past several years, the foundation has been at the center of a number of efforts to prevent homelessness and provide affordable, stable homes for thousands of families living with the danger that they could lose their homes or be forced from the region.
For more information, read the full press release and a blog post by the San Francisco Foundation’s CEO Fred Blackwell about the grant.