Meet Jane Williams,
Board Member and Professional Advisor

Jane Williams has more than 30 years of experience in the investment field and is the co-founder and CEO of Sand Hill Advisors.  As a financial services firm that manages $1.3 billion in assets, Sand Hill Advisors provides comprehensive and specialized advisory services to families, individuals in financial transition, charitable organizations and select institutions.  In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Jane was listed as one of the 100 Most Influential Business Women in the San Francisco Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. A former member of the Peninsula Community Foundation board, she now serves on the Silicon Valley Community Foundation Board and chairs the donor outreach committee.

Jane took a few minutes to share with us some of her thoughts on the important interplay among professional advisors, clients, charitable giving and the community foundation.

How did you get involved with the community foundation?

My clients and professional colleagues pulled me to the community foundations.   I was introduced to the concept of donor-advised funds by fellow board member Greg Gallo during the 1980’s. At the same time, I had clients who were thinking proactively about charity— which was not typical—but it became clear that our firm had to figure out new ways to help clients be more efficient in giving money. Our local community foundations provided flexibility in giving and sophisticated support to help my clients achieve their charitable objectives.  Having developed deep respect for both Community Foundation Silicon Valley and Peninsula Community Foundation, I was delighted to be invited to join Peninsula’s board.

Why do you refer clients to the community foundation? 

Our clients are wealthy individuals, and many of them are highly philanthropic. Their charitable work is very important to them.  We refer many of them to the community foundation because the community foundation provides the expertise they need to identify and achieve their philanthropic goals.  We can help clients determine how to make a charitable gift and the size and timing of such a gift, but it is not our role to be a resource to help them find an outlet for that gift within the community. Clients are looking for appropriate recipients of their gifts as well as grant-making assistance, due diligence, and help ferreting out key organizations for their interest areas.  These are exactly the types of services provided by the community foundation.

What is rewarding about being a professional advisor who helps clients with their philanthropy?

As a firm, Sand Hill has included charitable budgeting and planning for our clients for a very long time. We have learned from our clients that philanthropy can provide a positive, forward-looking and sometimes healing focus during major life transitions.  Many of our clients come into great wealth as a result of a big life change, and often there is a lot of pain involved. Even in those transitions during which great new wealth and liquidity is realized, developing a personal center by focusing on efforts that benefit society helps people gain a constructive perspective. Doing so is expanding and empowering.  

Helping clients with their philanthropy gives them a real sense that their money can be used for good and can impact their community and the world.  So when we work with clients coming out of hard times and extended periods of unhappiness—and their focus shifts to using their resources for good—a wonderful transformation takes place.  Sometimes doing good gets lost in the shuffle of life transitions, but getting focused on what really is important outside of yourself is a tremendously helpful benefit in getting people through to the other side.  It’s rewarding to know we play a very personal role in this transformation.

Charles Collier, who is Harvard University's senior philanthropic advisor, points out that allowing ourselves as advisors to deal with our clients’ full selves is rewarding and renewing.  Our clients’ visions encompass their families and communities.  Addressing their vision is the most exciting aspect of my work. 

How can professional advisors be helpful in the community foundation?

The role we can play with clients is to help them decide on a reasonable charitable budget.  Some people figure out their excess income, or the maximum limit that is tax deductible, and target gifts in that amount. Others figure out what portion of their wealth they can afford to give—we can help them think through those issues.  As professional advisors, we can be “the grease in the skids” to allow connection to occur between clients and the community foundation.

Community foundations play a unique role because in a certain sense they are independent; they can provide clients with a variety of options. Individual charities are much more focused.  But the domain of a community foundation is making available to clients the breadth of opportunities and needs combined with a deep knowledge base. 

We had a client whose husband passed away after a battle with Alzheimer’s. As a result, she was very interested in supporting Alzheimer’s organizations but was at a loss as to how to find a sustainable, long-term organization.  The community foundation did a great job resourcing options and nonprofits, and the client ultimately decided to set up a fund supporting Alzheimer’s organizations for her lifetime and beyond. Those are the kinds of resources fees pay for when clients join a community foundation, and those resources have real value.