The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund is a private foundation established in 1953 by Evelyn D. Haas and Walter A. Haas Jr.
| 94-6068932[1] | |
| Legal status | 501(c)(3) private foundation[1] |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States[1] |
| Cathy Cha [1] | |
| Walter D. Haas[1] | |
| Website | www |
As of 2019, the Fund has awarded nearly $625 million in philanthropic grants.[3]
Based in San Francisco, California, the Haas Fund supports nonprofit organizations and initiatives in five main program areas: Immigrant Rights and Integration; Gay and Lesbian Rights; Education Equity; Nonprofit Leadership; and Community Partnerships and Initiatives.
The foundation supports San Francisco Bay Area institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,[4] and local efforts such as the San Francisco Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund and the transformation of Crissy Field from a military base to an urban national park.[5]
Haas's great-great-uncle Levi Strauss, an immigrant from Bavaria, arrived in San Francisco in 1853 and started a dry-goods house that grew into a prosperous business and eventually became Levi Strauss & Co. A donor to organizations serving children and the poor, as well as the University of California, Berkeley, Strauss was credited in a 1902 obituary for his "numberless un-ostentatious acts of charity in which neither race nor creed were recognized."[6]
Evelyn and Walter's three children and three grandchildren are the foundation's Board Directors: Walter J. Haas, Robert D. Haas, Betsy Haas Eisenhardt, Elise Haas, Jesse Eisenhardt, and Walter A. Haas.[7]