OVERVIEW: The Walter & Elise Haas Fund supports community well-being in the San Francisco Bay Area, with current grantmaking focused on economic well-being, social well-being, nonprofit leadership and organizational health, place, policy and responsive community needs.
IP TAKE: The Haas Fund reorganized its grantmaking programs in the early 2020s to reflect a more holistic approach to community development in the Bay Area. This is a significant Bay Area funder with a strong interest in economic justice, belonging, community power, arts and culture, youth, nonprofit worker well-being and movement infrastructure. Its grantmaking moved away from older standalone portfolios for arts, education, economic security, safety net services and Jewish life. Today, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund emphasizes large, flexible and often multiyear investments in organizations it sees as deeply rooted in Bay Area communities.
This is largely a proactive funder and says it doesn’t generally accept unsolicited proposals. Several of its most prominent current initiatives involve already-selected cohorts, invitations or community nominations. One recent exception was the WE Initiative’s 2025 open call, which is now closed; the fund does not anticipate another WE open call until at least 2030. Organizations seeking to get on this funder’s radar will likely benefit more from strong participation in relevant Bay Area issue networks, coalitions and community relationships than from sending a cold proposal. Relevant program staff also explicitly invite questions from prospective grantees.
PROFILE: Walter A. Haas Sr. and Elise Stern Haas established the Walter & Elise Haas Fund in 1952. Walter Haas, who passed away in 1979, served as president, CEO and chair of Levi Strauss & Co. during his lifetime. Elise Haas was a great-niece of the company’s founder Levi Strauss.
The family foundation describes its mission as helping to build “a healthy, just, and vibrant society in which people feel connected to and responsible for their community.” Its current vision centers a Bay Area in which people can reach their potential and live with purpose, dignity and joy. Since its founding, the fund says it has awarded more than $390 million in grants.
The funder’s guiding grantmaking concept is community well-being, which it connects to both economic stability and social cohesion. Its public grantmaking framework currently consists of Economic Well-being, Social Well-being, Supportive Grantmaking and other responsive or mission-related funding. The fund lists arts, Jewish life, racial justice and other earlier portfolios under previous grantmaking.
Grants for K-12 Education, Human Services and Economic Opportunity
The Fund’s Economic Well-Being incorporates work that was formerly housed in its education, economic security and safety net portfolios. The fund says it began integrating those areas in 2023 and now focuses on the health and self-determination of youth and adults in Oakland and San Francisco, addressing root causes of inequity and strengthening the nonprofits and leaders doing this work.
- A major component is the Endeavor Fund, a $24.5 million, seven-year initiative launched in 2023 to address the racial and gender wealth gap while supporting nonprofit worker well-being. Seven Bay Area nonprofits received commitments of $3.5 million each in general operating support: East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, East Bay Community Law Center, La Cocina, Oakland Kids First, Oakland Promise, Young Women’s Freedom Center and Youth Organize! California. These are long-term existing commitments rather than a currently open application opportunity.
- Economic Well-being has also included Possibility Grants, a participatory grantmaking initiative designed and decided by the fund’s Bay Area Youth Community Fellows.
- In 2024, 10 organizations received $100,000 each in general operating support. Grantees included Anti Police-Terror Project, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, Dads Evoking Change, El/La Para TransLatinas, Feed Black Futures, Freedom Forward, Legal Services for Children, Oakland Leaf and Vital Arts. The Fund emphasized youth leadership, racial and gender justice, community care, cultural work and organizations addressing systemic inequities. Fiscally sponsored projects were eligible.
- The Possibility Grants webpage still refers to a 2024 funding cycle. IP could not verify a current open round. Grantseekers should check the Fund’s website for future youth-led opportunities rather than treating this as an evergreen application program.
- The Fund has also made grants concerning nonprofit worker well-being and policy conditions. Its recent work has examined wages, job quality and the conditions under which nonprofit workers and organizations can thrive. In 2024, for example, the fund awarded Nonprofit Finance Fund $250,000 for research related to nonprofit worker well-being.
Grants for Social Well-being, Arts and Belonging
The fund’s Social Well-being grantmaking supports organizations working to cultivate belonging and social cohesion across the Bay Area. This portfolio carries forward elements of the fund’s earlier arts, Jewish life and racial justice grantmaking rather than maintaining those areas as separate current programs.
- One major strategy is the WE Initiative, which focuses on organizations that build belonging in Oakland and San Francisco through cultural identity and celebration, community connection, solidarity and collective action. The fund’s 2025 open call was available to 501(c)(3) nonprofits and fiscally sponsored projects and prioritized organizations rooted in, serving or otherwise strongly oriented toward Oakland or San Francisco. Organizations with annual budgets of $5 million or less received priority.
- The Fund received 803 responses and selected 24 organizations for five years of unrestricted support. Each receives $100,000 annually, for a total commitment of $500,000 per grantee and $12 million across the cohort. Grantees include Black Organizing Project, Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, EastSide Arts Alliance, Faith in Action Bay Area, Freedom Community Clinic, Galería de la Raza, Jews of Color Initiative, Planting Justice, POOR Magazine, Restore Oakland, Sins Invalid, Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, Sustainable Economies Law Center, Urban Adamah and Vital Arts, among others.
- The WE Initiative is not currently open. The application period closed in June 2025, and the fund says it does not anticipate another WE open call until at least 2030.
- Arts funding now prominently includes the Creative Power Awards, which evolved from the longtime Creative Work Fund. The program backs Bay Area artists and cultural practitioners whose work contributes to community connection, belonging, healing and social change. Artists are identified through confidential community nominations and then invited to apply. A community panel makes final selections.
- In the inaugural 2025 round, nine artists received unrestricted awards of $100,000 each. Each artist also selected an arts and cultural organization to receive a separate $75,000 unrestricted grant, bringing the round’s total funding to $1.575 million. Recipients represented work involving disability justice, community organizing, civic engagement, cultural preservation, immigrant youth, LGBTQ communities and other forms of socially engaged artistic practice. The program is a partnership with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, with United States Artists serving as a program design adviser.
- Creative Power Awards do not accept unsolicited proposals. Artists enter the process through community nomination.
Grants for Nonprofit Capacity, Place and Policy
The fund’s Supportive Grantmaking works across its Economic and Social Well-being portfolios and focuses on nonprofit leaders, physical space and policy.
- Leader Well-being grants support the health and wellness of nonprofit leaders and the strength of their organizations. The fund’s current webpage says the 2025 awards went to Economic Well-being grantees and directs readers to subscribe for updates about a future round. IP could not verify a currently open 2026 application process.
- Placemaking grants support nonprofits seeking to own, claim or develop physical spaces for community use. The fund’s published information describes these grants as invitation-only in 2025.
- Policy grants support changes to systems and conditions that Economic and Social Well-being grantees identify as important to their communities. The fund likewise described these grants as invitation-only in 2025.
Other and Responsive Grantmaking
The fund also makes grants outside its major anchor strategies for philanthropy field-building, capital needs and emerging Bay Area community priorities.
- In 2025, for example, the fund increased its payout and committed $3.25 million primarily to local and state organizations, along with some national groups, responding to threats facing nonprofits, immigrants, arts and cultural organizations and civil society. Recipients included the Bay Area Cultural Funders for Equity at the San Francisco Foundation, Black Freedom Fund, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, Jobs with Justice San Francisco, Latino Community Foundation, National Council of Nonprofits, Protect Democracy, Trabajadores Unidos Workers United and Women’s Foundation California.
- This appears to be responsive, funder-initiated grantmaking rather than a standing rapid-response fund with an open application process.
Important Grant Details
The fund’s latest available Form 990-PF, covering 2024, reported approximately $260.3 million in net assets and $15.3 million in charitable disbursements.
Grant amounts vary considerably depending on the mechanism. Recent examples include $15,000 Social Well-being grants, $100,000 Possibility Grants, $500,000 five-year WE Initiative commitments and $3.5 million seven-year Endeavor Fund commitments. The fund increasingly emphasizes unrestricted and multiyear funding in its major initiatives.
- The fund does not generally accept unsolicited proposals. Its WE Initiative FAQ states directly that, outside that initiative’s now-closed open process, W&EHF does not accept unsolicited proposals and anticipates that other opportunities will generally be invitation- or nomination-based. (WE Initiative FAQ)
- For grantseekers, the most realistic prospecting strategy is therefore visibility and relationship-building rather than a cold LOI. Organizations that are strongly aligned with the fund’s priorities should look for genuine opportunities to participate in the Bay Area coalitions, issue networks and community ecosystems in which its current grantees operate.
- Fiscal sponsorship can provide an eligibility pathway where a particular opportunity permits it. Both the WE Initiative and Possibility Grants explicitly allowed fiscally sponsored projects. There is no evidence, however, that using a particular fiscal sponsor creates preferential access to the fund.
- The fund maintains a searchable grantee directory that is useful for identifying recent recipients, issue-area patterns and potential peer organizations.
- The fund is not currently accepting applications, but grantseekers should sign up for email alerts about new opportunities.
- Submit questions via the contact page. The fund’s phone number is listed as (415) 398-4474.
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