During a public health crisis like the one we’re facing, it is more important than ever that each of us does our part to support one another.
For all of us, that means practicing safe habits as recommended by the CDC, including social distancing and staying at home whenever possible. It also means giving back wherever and however we can — and for my wife Kat Taylor and me, it has meant taking a hard look at our organizations to make sure we’re doing what we can to ease the strain that so many are feeling.
Over several decades, Kat and I have tried to do our part in making the world a better place for all. This includes serving on boards of nonprofits and making charitable contributions through TomKat Foundation. When I decided to leave my employ to focus full-time on climate and racial equity, we added a focus on good energy, good food and good money to advance change at the systems level. To ensure those changes were informed, realistic, and lasting, we established organizations working in each system. We also continued to make grants in those fields and more, as we do today.
At the heart of good money, we started a bank called Beneficial State Bank (BSB) which is now $1 billion in assets, 15 branches, 220 colleagues serving the three west coast states. The bank meets a triple bottom line of social justice, environmental well-being, and financial sustainability and is owned by a non-profit to ensure it sticks to that mission. Impact is our currency, and you can see the impact the bank has had at
beneficialstate.org/impact.
During this pandemic, BSB is working hard to provide extra support and financial stability. We’ve waived fees on many services, we’re instituting loan payment deferment programs, and the bank’s staff are working with people who are having difficulties making payments.
Good energy turned out to be not a scientific or business problem, but rather a political one. So I started NextGen America to increase voter turnout, especially among Millennials and Gen-Z. We have committed over $50 million in funding through the 2020 election to NextGen to ensure we actually have a democracy of, by, and for the people. And we have supported necessary policy changes to address climate across many states, including California where we beat Big Oil.
Now we are also working with ReGenesis, a foundation that promotes neighborhood revitalization and environmental justice, to support equitable economic development in the frontline communities where both climate change and COVID-19 have hit disproportionately hard.
Finally, to foster an equitable and sustainable food system, we established TomKat Ranch and TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation as a learning laboratory that derisks, broadcasts, and creates end markets for regenerative agriculture. The Foundation also grants funds to many initiatives including California Food for California Kids — a public-private partnership between TomKat Foundation, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and the Center for Eco-literacy. This initiative is now operating in one-third of California’s school districts that represent one billion school meals served annually, serving California procured, minimally processed or preserved, maximally organic food in our school children's meals.
Since COVID-19, food system priorities have shifted (understandably) but we remain committed to high quality school food. Specifically, we are pivoting our advocacy toward retaining the Governor’s $80 million budget item to expand California Food for California Kids. And most recently, we are working to provide additional resources to their effort in Oakland, CA (where the bank is headquartered) to feed our most vulnerable populations.
School children, their families, un-housed populations, shut in seniors, and veterans have always lacked access to high-quality, fulsome food but during COVID-19, the situation has turned even more dire. TomKat Foundation is marshaling its resources to support organizations that are utilizing idled restaurants to cook from scratch healthy meals that put workers back to work and feed those in need. To start, we have committed at least $250,000 to the effort. The program focuses first on Oakland, and will attempt to create a model for other communities.
At home in San Francisco, we are looking at all the ways we can support our community. This week, we donated 50 laptops to San Francisco Public Schools so students have the resources they need to learn from home, and we’re donating an additional 250 laptops to students across the city in the coming days.
If you’re able to support others, we’d love to learn how you have found to help out, too — reply to this email to let us know.
When Kat and I took the Giving Pledge — a commitment to donate the majority of our wealth during our lifetimes — we put down on paper what we have always believed: It is not only our duty but our privilege to leave this world a better place than we found it. We continue to give to great organizations. But these times demand that we step up even more, so we are reviewing all of our charitable endeavors to see how they can better serve the needs of the community during the coronavirus pandemic.
Thank you — and more to come soon.
Tom Steyer
