San Francisco Foundation

SFF's Bay Area Community Impact Fund provides nonprofit organizations and social enterprises with low-interest, long-term loans and loan guarantees. These investments are also known as Program-Related Investments (PRIs). The goal of this fund is to finance high-impact projects that align with our racial and economic equity agenda in underinvested communities. The Fund primarily lends to community development lenders and established nonprofits with demonstrated ability to use and repay loans. By providing nonprofits with access to affordable capital, our fund enables organizations to expand their activities and finance high-impact projects. As loans are repaid, the fund uses the money to invest in new projects, recycling capital to the continuing benefit of the region. PRIs are an important complement to the foundation’s grantmaking, supporting our mission and amplifying our programmatic impact in a sustainable way.

The foundation bestows artistic awards in literature, visual arts, and playwriting each year to artists who exemplify a commitment to the ever expanding notion of the essential role of art and artists in the world.

This award celebrate visionary leaders doing extraordinary work to strengthen Bay Area communities. The work may confront societal or civic issues, address health or environmental concerns, or promote arts and humanities.

This award recognizes the next generation of leadership in the community, providing awards to outstanding San Francisco public high school students who balance extraordinary family, economic and societal pressures with the discipline required for academic excellence, and the drive to succeed at community leadership

The foundation seeks to: 1) build the self-awareness and confidence needed for individuals to be creative and effective leaders in their neighborhoods; 2) stimulate personal and professional growth among neighborhood leaders; 3) increase understanding among different types of people within neighborhoods; and 4) promote the concept that nurturing these differences is a crucial element in solving neighborhood problems

Together with our partners, the San Francisco Foundation is tackling challenges to housing, employment, access to transit, and civic participation in the Bay Area. The collaborative efforts including ReWork the Bay, Great Communities Collaborative, HOPE SF, Keep Oakland Housed, Partnership for the Bay's Future, and Oakland Codes, allow funders, donors, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to pool resources and expertise to create large-scale, long-term solutions to these challenges. Our foundation serves as a leader for these efforts, providing backbone functions that include convenings, research, community engagement, and administration.

The Rapid Response Fund for Movement Building provides quick-turnaround funds to frontline social justice organizations that are strengthening the voice and power of low-income residents and people of color. The fund offers grassroots organizations small, one-time grants within 30 days of receiving a funding request.

The foundation invests in change through arts and culture because artistic expression is a human right. The arts constitute an integral component of a healthy community, building bridges across generations, gender, and ethnicity

The Foundation’s two-year philanthropic leadership development program. The fellowship equips emerging leaders of color with the experience, knowledge, and network within the power structure of philanthropy to increase racial equity and economic inclusion in the Bay Area. For more than 30 years, the Multicultural Fellowship has been a career accelerator for leaders who are motivated, creative agents of change. The fellows’ experiences and perspectives shape, influence, and challenge the foundation’s work as well. Fellows have developed new initiatives, strengthened the approach of the work of the foundation, and brought experiences in that too often are unheard in philanthropy.

Supporting policy and systems change efforts is one of the most important tools we can use to advance racial equity and economic inclusion in the Bay Area. Our Policy & Innovation Team focuses on identifying and advocating for policy solutions that are backed up by research, informed by the lived experiences of residents in the Bay Area, and led by our partner community-based organizations.

We focus our systems change efforts on policies that advance racial and economic equity, ensure that all Bay Area residents have a safe and affordable place to call home, and build long-term power among people living on low incomes and communities of color. Our current priority policy efforts include affordable housing, worker rights (including immigrant worker rights), and fines and fees related to the criminal legal system. These priorities continue to evolve based on community need and opportunity.