You might not know about the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, unless you work in philanthropy — or you caught stories earlier this year about a mystery donor using the foundation to give $10 million to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s nonprofit.
But since the SVCF was founded in 2007, it has become one of the most powerful vehicles for charitable giving in the United States. With nearly $14 billion in assets, it has emerged as the largest community fund in the world and the go-to for Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings and other tech titans to donate sizable chunks of their fortunes for eventual distribution to chosen causes.
Charismatic president and CEO Nicole Taylor, who has led the foundation since 2018, believes the SVCF should help the most vulnerable. In 2022, she oversaw the distribution of nearly $2.6 billion in grants to more than 5,000 organizations around the world. Nearly $550 million of that went to Bay Area nonprofits, including $154 million to organizations in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
The nonprofit world praised Taylor for steering SVCF out of a #MeToo scandal; her predecessor stepped down over allegations that he and another executive fostered a toxic workplace. Taylor continues to deal with criticism that SVCF and other large U.S. foundations warehouse America’s wealth and contribute to society’s inequities, instead of distributing their billions to people in need right now.
Much of the criticism focuses on assets kept in SVCF’s 1,200 donor-advised funds. These charitable accounts allow donors to receive big tax breaks for giving away money or stock. There’s no legal requirement that the money ever be distributed, however, which means the public could lose tax revenues that might have gone for services. Critics also say there’s little transparency; money can be doled out anonymously, for example, to Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation.