Talia Beatty, The Associated Press
13 minutes ago
Silicon Valley Community Foundation President and CEO Nicole Taylor in her office in Mountain View, Calif., Monday, June 24, 2024. As president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Taylor has an inside view into trends in philanthropy. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
Nicole Taylor has an inside view into philanthropy trends as president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Donors at the Mountain View, Calif.-based community foundation contributed about $4.6 billion in 2023, up from $2.6 billion the year before.
Taylor said the surge was thanks to some big donors who “really gave big amounts to causes they care about.”
She said it’s hard to predict what will happen this year. “Will there be more wars? We have a big election coming up. We fully expected donors to be active. Will it be $4 billion again? It’s tough.”
While the foundation does not comment on specific donors or donation amounts, reported grants make it clear that its clients include some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest and most influential people, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, other former Facebook employees, and others who made their fortunes in the fast-growing artificial intelligence business.
Taylor, who joined the foundation in December 2018 and is the first Black woman to lead it, spoke with The Associated Press about philanthropy’s role in a democracy, threats to advocacy for racial justice and the rise of donor-advised funds. The interview has been condensed.
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Q: The majority of charitable donations go to donor-advised funds, and that percentage is growing. How does SVCF get donors to actually send their donations to charities?
A: Donor-advised funds have, as I often say, enabled so many people to get into the game. To get off the sidelines and get in the game and really be able to make an impact in ways that were previously inaccessible. You don’t have to be wealthy. You don’t have to start your own private foundation. It allows you to accumulate some resources that you can release or release quickly.
We don’t actually have to do anything to encourage donors to give. … We have issue area funds. If donors aren’t sure what they want to give to, they can give to the housing fund or the immigration fund or the civic engagement fund or the journalism fund. … And we have an inactive fund policy. If after two years we haven’t made any grants, we put it in the community fund.
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Q: Some people worry that their DAF contributions are sitting around unspent, and this is one place where fears about inequality in our society show up.
A: That’s odd, because the question should be about private foundations. I always say to my colleagues at private foundations, “You guys just hold assets.” We don’t hold assets. They hold assets. … Private foundations have a billion dollars in them, but they only have to give a small percentage of it every year. I keep repeating this because that’s where the worry should be. How can they get away with it? People worry about a $25,000 DAF that makes a $5,000 grant every year, because that’s the size of the DAFs we’re talking about. And when you talk about the largest DAFs ever, they’re the most active of all donors, and they give away quite a bit of money every year. Hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
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Q: The Supreme Court decision last year that struck down affirmative action in colleges and universities is sending ripples through the philanthropic world. What are the real risks for nonprofits pursuing racial justice?
A: Even though the decision was very narrow and it pertained to higher education admissions, there is growing anxiety about this. The anxiety and some of the lawsuits that have already been filed are real and palpable. People are worried. … Now is not the time to back down. It is not the time to walk away from communities and communities of color that have faced systemic inequities for decades, centuries. What we’ve started to do is figure out how to prepare organizations so they know what they can do, what they can say, where they might invite legal attack, and what kind of legal education and preparation they need. So we’re actually starting and cultivating a fund through the California Black Freedom Fund, which is the Legal Education and Advocacy Defense Fund, or LEAD, which is specifically focused on racial justice issues and organizations that are working in that space. We have funding sources, we have legal experts and advocacy experts at the table, and we’re training nonprofit leaders in California on this issue.
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Q: How will you engage with donors ahead of the November election?
A: We often joke that Silicon Valley is an ATM for both political parties. There’s a lot of activity going on in the region right now with elections. Not just the presidential election, but congressional elections, local elections. A lot of people are very active during election season and very interested in the civic engagement piece.
As for donor events, we have a couple coming up in June. One is about civic engagement, and the other is about the role of local journalism and democracy and where people are getting information. If English isn’t your first language, where are you getting information about how to vote, register, get involved? Again, this isn’t just at the national level. You can have a say in who gets elected to your child’s school board.
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Q: Silicon Valley is also home to social media platforms and technology companies that have contributed to the degradation of the information ecosystem. Do donors take that into consideration?
A: We’re at a very interesting intersection in Silicon Valley. Our donors are very understanding of the impact of technology on information and civic engagement, both good and bad. They understand that very well, and they want to push the good side of civic engagement and fighting disinformation.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits is supported by the Associated Press through a collaboration between The Conversation US and the Lilly Endowment Inc. with financial assistance from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Follow all AP philanthropy coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
