California Foundations and West Coast Philanthropy

A century after the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Industrialists gave rise to iconic private foundations – Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford,  the mega fortunes of Silicon Valley tycoons have ushered in a seemingly new era of philanthropy by applying business techniques and ways of thinking in the form of venture philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, and impact investing, to their charitable impulses – trends that have seen widespread adoption across the entire social sector, whose traditional boundaries are increasingly becoming blurred.

This will be the focus at a panel at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Historical Association: New Philanthropic Frontiers: California-Based Foundations and the Emergence of West Coast Philanthropy on January 7 in San Francisco. Jim Ferris will moderate the panel which will explore the evolution of West Coast philanthropy using an interdisciplinary approach, in an attempt to better understand the distinguishing characteristics of the understudied Bay Area philanthropic ecosystem. The session includes:

A City for Children: Women, Architecture, and Philanthropy in Oakland, California
Marta Gutman, Dean and Professor, Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York

Planting the Seeds for a New Philanthropic Tradition: The Early Influences of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 1966−77
Tim Mueller, Managing Director, Chester and Fourth

Lucille Packard: A Pioneer Woman in West Coast Philanthropy
Asher Orkaby, Lecturer, Harvard University

Creating the “Silicon Valley Way of Giving”: 1970−2000
Micah McElroy, Associate Director of Research, Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative, Stanford University