City’s donors earn spotlight with virus fund
For a city with 75 billionaires — the highest per capita of any city in the world — you might think money would be flooding into the city’s Give2SF fund to provide assistance to those suffering during the COVID19 pandemic. You’d be wrong. Until Tuesday, the fund had raised a respectable, but not earthshattering $11.3 million. That was more than doubled with a surprisingly large $15 million donation from Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey on Tuesday, but city officials are hoping the largesse is not an isolated incident.
“For a city that has such wealth and more billionaires per capita than any city in the world, you’d think we’d be talking about hundreds of millions, not tens of millions,” said
Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who sits on the Give2SF oversight committee.
Of course, there are many worthy charities to choose from when it comes to donating your millions. Or, for the rest of us, your tens. But Ronen wants to boost the profile of Give2SF with a new social media ad campaign highlighting the sweet stories of regular people donating and regular people benefiting. Her legislative aide, Jennifer Li, has a background in graphic design and created scores of ads for the campaign.
“We created this campaign to show San Franciscans, ‘Look how many of us are stepping up to take care of one another,’ ” Ronen said. “That’s the oldschool, beautiful San Francisco that we know and love.”
No money is taken out for administration, and it all goes straight to those who need it in the form of grants to small business owners, grocery gift cards for struggling families, food delivery for seniors and disabled people, and financial assistance for people who can’t make rent or pay their utility bills.
With the city’s deficit pegged at up to $1.7 billion over the next two years, city officials are trying to fund new assistance programs through philanthropy and not rely on taxpayer money.
“I think there certainly should be more,” acknowledged Matthew Goudeau, director of philanthropy for Give2SF, of the mediocre fundraising tally so far.
Goudeau, director of Grants for the Arts, is now pulling double duty in his new role and said the city’s deeppocketed folks have a range of priorities when it comes to giving away their money.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of those with more resources in the city not supporting anything right now — perhaps they’re just not supporting Give2SF,” he said.
A quick perusal of the donations showed some noteworthy ones: $10,000 from Tania and Brianna Lee, the daughters of the late Mayor Ed Lee; $50,000 from singer Tracy Chapman; and $5,000 from Muni chief Jeffrey Tumlin.
Some of the city’s wealthiest people have ponied up — such as a $111,000 donation from philanthropist Dede Wilsey, $1 million from Ann and Gordon Getty, and $1 million from the Hellman Foundation. To donate, visit www.give2sf.org.
The ad campaign, though, focuses on everyday people giving to the fund or surviving because of it. There’s an ad about Noris Gomez, owner of Sabor de San Miguel, a Mayan restaurant in the Mission, that received $7,500 from the fund to keep paying bills while the restaurant is temporarily shuttered.
“It’s giving us a real chance of remaining open,” said Gomez, explaining the restaurant probably would had to shut permanently without the grant. The restaurant also received $11,000 in the second round of the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
There’s an ad about Charles Suwannaporn, founder of Cotton the First, a shirt company. He’s using his shirt fabric to sew highend masks from his South of Market apartment and is donating $3 per mask to Give2SF. So far, he’s made 600 masks.
“I’m glad I can do this for the people of San Francisco,” he said. “Everybody can help. This is how I help.”
There’s also one about 9yearold Asha Dev, a thirdgrader in the Richmond District, who raised $104 by setting up a sidewalk stand to sell succulent clippings in handpainted jars. She intends to sell every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Look for her stand on 29th Avenue between California and Clement streets.
“I wanted to help people,” Asha explained. “I thought that maybe I could make money by selling really cool plants.”
She’s determined to raise more money by advertising her sales via chalk art on the sidewalk.
“And maybe you could tell your neighbors to come to 29th Avenue on a Sunday,” she said.
Consider it done, Asha.
“We created this campaign to show San Franciscans, ‘Look how many of us are stepping up to take care of one another.’ ”
Supervisor Hillary Ronen, on the social media ads for Give2SF