For supporting materials and answers to frequently asked questions, visit our Funding the Center page.

Welcome

For 30 years, the Foundation Center—San Francisco has played a vital role in our communities, strengthening the Bay Area's vibrant nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about philanthropy. Organizations you support and care about are among those that benefit from our work. At our San Francisco library/learning center, we provide grantseekers and grantmakers with the tools that will help them build their capacity to achieve their missions.

Conveniently located on all major public transit lines near Union Square and the Financial District, the San Francisco library/learning center also serves as a meeting ground for those in the nonprofit sector in our area, bringing people together for learning and discussion. Nearly 10,000 people visit us each year, and nearly a thousand more are served by programs we offer elsewhere in the Bay Area and statewide.

Funding from grantmakers makes our programs and services possible. These include free access to our comprehensive library collection, innovative educational programming, one-on-one reference assistance, and dedicated public outreach throughout California and the western region of the U.S. In addition, participation from grantmakers in our educational workshops informs their potential applicants about the grantseeking process.

Information Resources and Services

Nonprofit staff members and volunteers, individual grantseekers, and others interested in the charitable sector visit our library to find information on specific funders and on all aspects of philanthropy and nonprofit management. Our reference staff is available 38 hours each week, including evening hours, to provide individual assistance to visitors. Our library offers free public access to the Center's searchable databases of grants and grantmakers, including Foundation Directory Online, Corporate Giving Online, and Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, and to an unparalleled collection of books, periodicals, videos, and other materials produced by the Center and other publishers.

Our library is an essential means for ensuring free access to information on grantmakers and their giving and to skill-building materials that prepare nonprofits to succeed in grantseeking. Our lending program is particularly helpful to busy nonprofit staff and volunteers. Permitting visitors to borrow books encourages learning and promotes professional development, while conserving scarce nonprofit dollars. To meet the needs of our library visitors, many of whom represent organizations that are under-resourced, newly formed, or seeking grants for the first time, we are particularly committed to building our lending collection of introductory books, videos, and how-to resources appropriate for novices. Our circulating collection, launched in 2004, now has over 600 registered borrowers, and we expect this number to continue to grow. The circulating collection offers more than 100 unique titles, on fundraising, philanthropy, nonprofit management, and voluntarism, including multiple copies of the Foundation Center's highly popular Guide to Proposal Writing, and both volumes of our Guide to Winning Proposals. People who register as borrowers are able to use these resources at their own offices or homes, on their own schedules.

Education and Outreach

Our San Francisco library/learning center presents a regular rotation of 15 free classes and 7 full-day courses on the grantseeking process and funding research. Our free classes are especially important to under-resourced agencies attempting to diversify their revenue base, startup organizations, and new staff members of established organizations. Our growing network of Cooperating Collections, funding information centers located at libraries and community agencies throughout California and the nation, also provides convenient, free access to the Foundation Center's print and online directories of grantmakers and grants and other core Foundation Center resources, as well as training and assistance in using them effectively.

To help us reach new audiences, the Foundation Center collaborates with other nonprofits whose special areas of expertise complement ours. One of our highest priorities is to provide grantseeker training to smaller, newer nonprofits. Additionally, we are taking our Meet the Grantmakers workshops beyond San Francisco to other locations in the Bay Area and statewide.

Virtual Services

Our web site is an increasingly popular means of interaction with the Foundation Center. We provide same-day reference assistance through our Online Librarian. Visitors to the Foundation Center's San Francisco library/learning center homepage find content of specific interest to our region's nonprofit community, including Philanthropy News Digest—Pacific and profiles of regional nonprofit organizations and grants that make a difference. The more than 21,000 people who subscribe to our electronic San Francisco Library News receive free weekly e-mail notices of new resources and upcoming classes and events. Many people find information on our homepage or in our e-newsletter that helps them plan visits to our library/learning center.

In June, 2007, we launched an Events Archive offering a variety of programs previously presented that have been captured through multimedia, including a special section for San Francisco events.

Serving Specialized Audiences

In response to requests from our audiences for programming that addresses the specific interests of their organizations, the Center offers programs that provide a forum for sharing and learning about new grantmaking priorities and practices, discussing issues related to specific fields of the nonprofit sector, exchanging ideas and information, and networking with colleagues.

We are committed to ensuring that all those who can benefit from our information and training are able to take advantage of them. Spanish-language classes and reference assistance benefit the growing number of Spanish-speaking grantseekers in our area. For people with disabilities, we provide signers upon request, assistive technology, and a lending program for those who are unable to visit us in person.

You Can Help Support Our Vision

The Foundation Center's vision is a world enriched by the effective allocation of philanthropic resources, informed public discourse about philanthropy, and broad understanding of the contributions of nonprofit activity to civil society. We hope that you will support our work as we embark on our second half-century of service to the Western region's nonprofit sector.

Please feel free to contact me directly to learn more about our programs or about becoming a donor to our San Francisco library/learning center.

Janet Camarena

Director, San Francisco Library/Learning Center
(415) 397-0902