Thoughts from the CEO and President: 
OUR NEW HOME

As summer concludes, Silicon Valley Community Foundation continues to move forward and make exciting progress. After many months of construction, new paint, carpeting and unpacking we opened our doors to a new headquarters at 2440 West El Camino Real in Mountain View.

In coming months, staff will get know our new neighborhood – learning the best ways to commute and finding new favorite restaurants – and as an organization, we will continue to identify new and innovative ways to serve the larger community that San Mateo and Santa Clara counties comprise.

Moving to our headquarters is an important milestone. Our new, centralized location houses more than 100 staff working alongside each other to help us be even more effective in building out our vision and mission to be a comprehensive center for philanthropy, inspire greater civic participation, improve quality of life and address the region’s most challenging problems.

Our new office will be a vibrant hub of activity and information, a free center for the community to convene, a place to host small conferences, and a destination for donors, professional advisors and community members who want to take advantage of the expertise of our staff.  We also will maintain our conference and meeting facilities in San Mateo (the Imagination Room) and San José (the Kirsch Conference Center) which will remain available to community organizations.

As promised, we have begun our dialogues with community groups and leaders to get the best ideas about the strategies that the community foundation should consider pursuing to make a significant difference in our community.  The launch of our Community Input Project will give us a fresh look at a variety of key issues including: arts and culture, housing, economic development, immigration, health and education.  Our continued dialogue with community leaders, practitioners, advocates and other funders will help us determine gaps and identify strategic and timely opportunities.

The launch of the Community Input Project also marks a transition in our unrestricted grantmaking programs.  We are pleased that while in the midst of implementing the merger, we have provided $3.5 million in grants throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara counties during the first half of 2007.  As previously announced, the current grant reviews that are underway will be our last until we announce our new grantmaking strategy sometime in the late fall or early winter.

As with many new homes, plans for the community foundation’s open house celebrations are underway and invitations are forthcoming. We look forward to welcoming you to our new state-of-the-art facility and working with you to continue our efforts to more effectively transform our community.