Editors note: This guest blog is by Deborah Santana (pictured above in the middle), who served on our host committee for the Third Annual Women Changing the World Luncheon. Deborah is also founder and CEO of Do A Little, a donor advised fund at The San Francisco Foundation, and vice chair board of trustees, Museum of the African Diaspora.

I grew up in San Francisco, and heard the words of great shape shifters and activists like Dolores Huerta, Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers and President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which fueled my direction in life. Dolores says, “Putting women in positions of power must be at the top of our agendas.”

The San Francisco Foundation has been doing just that for 65 years.

Today’s Women Changing the World  luncheon showed the power of women’s philanthropy through the words of CEO Sandra R. Hernandez, M.D., and by highlighting the work of Nikki Henderson, Executive Director of People’s Grocery, and Kirsten Saenz Tobey, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Revolution Foods.

In the elegant Julia Morgan Ballroom, over 300 of us listened as Nikki said, “People in LA have work, and are models; have work, and are actors. People in San Francisco have work, and are activists.” I cheered! I agree that the Bay Area is home to a strong population of people who care about access to equitable healthcare, the arts, our environment, immigration rights, and housing for people of all incomes. We are also passionate about the quality of our food. In my 20′s, I opened a vegetarian restaurant on Church and Market Streets in San Francisco, Dipti Nivas. My mission was to serve the freshest salads, soups, and casseroles, and healthy shakes to nourish everyone who walked through our doors.

Nikki and Kirsten have taken the challenges that prevent access to healthy food for school children, adults, inner city citizens, and those who are ill, and they have provided powerful solutions. As a philanthropist with a donor advised fund at The San Francisco Foundation, I feel honored to receive the positive impact of the Foundation’s connections in the community. I have partnered with the Foundation to host Joia Mukherjee of Partners in Health who spoke about their organization’s work to provide health care to tens of thousands of Haitians. I have worked with Program Officers to identify needs in our local communities and to see how my Do A Little Fund might be most effective. At every juncture of my work with the Foundation, I find staff and advisors who are creating plans and actions to eliminate suffering in our world.

Educating girls is my passion. Kirsten spoke about how Revolution Foods has re-vitalized and revolutionized school meals in nine states and employs over 1,000 people, utilizing local farms and bakeries, and working with school administrations to feed healthy, natural foods to children so they are able to concentrate better and improve their minds.

There is so much work to do in the world, and women have the brilliance and inspiration to provide the passionate leadership that is needed. Thank you San Francisco Foundation for giving us this day of celebration of women leaders.

Learn more about our Women and Girls Fund, an opportunity to invest together in women and girls, and make a greater impact than one donation, one organization, or one grant could make alone. As part of our theme of women making communities healthier by increasing access to healthy food, we asked attendees to recommend a book or cook book by a woman author. The books were made available at the event and we’ve also made the full list of recommendations available for you to download.

As California and the country brown, the need for civic engagement and leadership indigenous to the various racial ethnic communities increases; leadership and engagement within and across communities is the platform upon which our civil society, our very democracy, rests. One of the ways in which we at The San Francisco Foundation are—and have been—addressing this critical issue is through our Multicultural Fellowship Program. What now looks like a stroke of genius started as an experiment. The Fellowship program was established over 30 years ago partially to address the lack of diversity in philanthropy; today there are 70 alumni exercising leadership in various sectors.

The program focuses on becoming an effective grantmaker via hands-on experience; it also provides an array of training, networking, mentoring, career coaching, and opportunities to strengthen the Fellows’ professional networks. The direct, on-the-job approach is a stepping stone to the next career opportunity. “My success in managing the CHANGE Coalition is a direct result of my experience managing a coalition at The San Francisco Foundation,” explains Kathryn Alcántar, Environment Fellow, 2005 – 2007. “This experience taught me the skills to manage obstacles, deal with challenging conversations, and keep people excited and motivated to work with each other.”

And just as important, it provides the Fellows with the opportunity to explore the most pressing societal issues with their teams, with our Foundation leadership, and with their cohort, creating professional relationships that often endure for the rest of their careers. Jaime Cortez, Arts & Culture Fellow, 2006 – 2008 observes that “it is hard to overstate how important it has been to build this network of authentic relationships. This is how I learn of professional opportunities; this is how I learn of art opportunities (calls for entries, performances, panels, openings, lectures, etc.).”

Today, February 7, we will be welcoming about half of our alumni whose homecoming will allow them to catch-up with each others lives and continue to learn from each other. The agenda allows an opportunity for alumni to share effective strategies that lead to greater engagement and leadership opportunities within and across many racial and ethnic backgrounds. The topic is timely; the expertise is abundant; the passion unfailing. These are our Multicultural Fellows.

I took the opportunity to mention that I have been, for some years now, making sporadic efforts to start an ongoing conversation on class issues here at the Foundation. When I first arrived at the Foundation to run the Multicultural Fellowship Program (then 25-years old), I was surprised to find that there was no mention of class issues in the otherwise comprehensive curriculum that I inherited.

One of the book club members asked me: “So what do you hope to achieve by having a discussion on class issues at your Foundation?” To me, the case for talking about class seems patently obvious: grantmakers should have a basic understanding of the foundation’s role in society. As a community foundation, that includes awareness about our multiple roles in working with wealthy donors as well as the nonprofits that service and work with the most disenfranchised sectors in our region. So what I hope to achieve is an opportunity for emerging grantmakers to create a personal framework that defines the socio-political values underlying their work. To me, the question of “Why discuss class issues?” is akin to asking, “Why would you teach mathematicians about the number system?”

Yet it was also a great question. Discussions on class are remarkably absent from the philanthropic discourse nationally. Yes, we talk endlessly about serving the underserved, providing a safety net, increasing accessibility, decreasing disparities, etc, but these conversations are remarkably devoid of the class context within which we do this work. I wonder:  How can this be? To paraphrase Mike Royko, no self-respecting grantmaker should want to be wrapped in a cloak of ignorance.

But philanthropy is only reflective of American society; like star-struck lovers, we remain focused on the romantic vision of the American Dream, not wanting or willing to see that over the last 30+ years that Dream has increasingly become an empty fantasy for the majority of us (yes, that would be the 99%). It turns out that it’s not easy to have discussions on class issues, largely because we are so inexperienced in doing so. I am heartened, however, that here at The San Francisco Foundation, we are re-doubling our efforts to understand the economic impacts of our country’s political decisions and to work with community partners that also see and speak to how political action—or inaction– affect the communities we serve. I like to call it a class analysis.

We have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting deals. This year help create #GivingTuesday™, the giving season’s opening day. On Tuesday November 27, 2012 charities, families, businesses, and individuals are coming together to transform the way people think about, talk about, and participate in the giving season.

It’s a simple idea. Find a way for your family, your community, your company, or your organization to join in acts of giving. Tell everyone you can about what you are doing and why it matters. Join a national celebration of our great tradition of generosity.

Giving Tuesday is an opportunity to come together and give of our time and money to the causes we care about. It’s a reminder that we can accomplish more together than any one of us can do alone. At The San Francisco Foundation, we believe in greater impact together. We are proud to serve a community of generous donors who partner with the Foundation year-round to support organizations meeting the community’s most important needs.

How will you celebrate #GivingTuesday?

Here are some of our top ideas:

1. Open a donor advised fund or give to your existing fund.
2. Recommend a grant to a nonprofit organization.
3. Make a gift to our Impact Funds to meet the community’s greatest needs.
4. Volunteer your time.
5. Promote giving by sharing this message with others.

There are so many reasons to give. We give because it feels good. Because we can. Because someone gave to us. Because we’re inspired and by giving, we inspire others. We give because it’s Giving Season, because it’s the best tradition of all.

When we give together, we create impact in the community that no one person, donation, or organization could do alone.