Stepping beyond our backyard
The Fund moves beyond local issues and supports state and national causes that reflect Bay Area concerns. The first step: establishing Freedom to Marry to catalyze the national marriage equality movement.
Crissy Field opens
With years of planning and community support, Crissy Field officially opens with a spectacular celebration in San Francisco. The stunning national park attracts more than a million visitors a year.
Leadership is a new priority
Fund directors approve a new grantmaking program for nonprofit leadership development.
Expanding diversity and inclusiveness
Fund directors approve a new priority: Promoting Diversity and Inclusiveness. This work leads to a focus on immigrant rights and gay and lesbian equality.
Losing our visionary co-founder
Walter A. Haas, Jr., passes away on Sept. 20th. Fund President Ira Hirschfield remarks in his eulogy, “This is a man who never forgot, not even for a day, how blessed he was, and how difficult life is for so many.”
A commitment to children, youth and families
The Fund adopts four priorities for grantmaking: Children, Youth, Families and the Elderly; Strengthening Neighborhoods; Reducing Hunger and Homelessness; and Encouraging Volunteer Service and Philanthropy.
Grantmaking grows with experience
The Fund expands its grantmaking to support the elderly, youth, immigrants, equal opportunity, corporate social responsibility, and community initiatives such as hospitals.
The Haas, Jr. Fund is born
Walter A. Haas, Jr. and Evelyn D. Haas create a family foundation that serves under-resourced communities, educational institutions, and cultural organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“It’s in the genes.”
The great grand-nephew of Levi Strauss, Walter A. Haas, Jr., helms Levi’s and continues the family tradition of moral leadership, integrating Levi’s sewing factories in the segregated South. Asked about his family’s penchant for giving, he says, “It’s in the genes.”
Beyond Fundraising
Three years ago, the Haas, Jr. Fund joined with CompassPoint Nonprofit Services to produce a study, UnderDeveloped, documenting the chronic fundraising challenges facing today’s nonprofits. One possible path to addressing these challenges, the report suggested, is for nonprofit leaders to foster and develop a “culture of philanthropy” in their organizations.
Even as we made this recommendation, we acknowledged that the term “culture of philanthropy” was not yet well understood across the sector. That’s why we recently asked Cynthia Gibson to look into exactly what the field means when we talk about such a culture. In Beyond Fundraising: What Does it Mean to Build a Culture of Philanthropy?, Cynthia synthesizes her conversations with diverse experts, offers a framework for understanding what a culture of philanthropy might look like, and provides suggestions on how to know if you have one.
The notion of a culture of philanthropy has generated a significant amount of conversation—and some controversy—across the field. Cynthia’s paper is a first attempt to try to capture what people are talking about and to identify the core elements of such a culture. The paper suggests that, without a deeper shift in how organizations hold the work of fund development, simply adopting new tools and techniques may not be enough.
The report is one of three studies that will be published by the Resetting Development work group, a panel of experts the Haas, Jr. Fund convened to identify and highlight promising practices that can help social change organizations break out of the chronic fundraising challenges spotlighted in the UnderDeveloped study.
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