Nancy and Joachim Bechtle Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Nancy and Joachim Bechtle Foundation primarily funds arts, education, and health.
IP TAKE: The Bechtle Foundation is a great ally of education, the arts and local health initiatives in the Bay Area, predominately in and around San Francisco. This place-based funder’s grantmaking interests have remained consistent following Nancy Bechtle’s passing in 2021. This will be a tough nut to crack, since the foundation lacks transparency about giving strategies and does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding. As a result, it will require networking to get on their funding radar.
PROFILE: The Nancy and Joachim Bechtle Foundation was founded in 2006. It was established by the business consultant couple Nancy and Joachim Bechtle of J.R. Bechtle & Company, an international consulting firm. The foundation does not maintain a website, which restricts information on its priority areas and grantmaking strategies. Tax filings suggest that the Nancy and Joachim Bechtle Foundation primarily funds grantmaking related to the arts, health, education, and community development.
Grants for Arts and Culture
Many of this funder’s grants for the arts are invested in larger, established cultural institutions that can scale funding. This means that arts and culture grants don’t prioritize grassroots arts efforts, but instead, institutions, museums, and the like. Ballet, opera, symphonies and art museums have an edge here.
The foundation makes many of its largest grants to support Bay Area arts organizations. Before her death in 2021, Nancy received a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award from the California Arts Council, a Leadership in the Arts award from St. Francis Hospital, and the Business Arts Council of the Chamber of Commerce's Trustee award. She served on the board of the San Francisco Symphony for nearly two decades, much of that time as the president and chief executive officer. Joachim, meanwhile has been on the board of trustees of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art since 2013.
Other past grantees include San Francisco Opera Association, San Francisco Ballet Association, and Bolinas Museum.
Grants for Public Health
The Bechtle Foundation’s health grants are very broad and tend to be all over the place. Past funding has invested in large, established organizations that can scale, as well as an interest in the Johns Hopkins’s Scleroderma Center, where Nancy served on the advisory board. She herself suffered from the autoimmune disease.
Other health grantees include Dan Francisco Free Clinics, the American Red Cross, and the Access Institute for Psychological Services.
Grants for Education and Community Development
Grants for education tend to overlap with community development in the Bay Area and are often broad and invested in organizations to which the family typically has or had a personal connection. Joaquim Bechtle served on the board of the University of California, so UC schools tend to be beneficieries of Bechtle funding. As well, Stanford University, where Nancy was an alumna, tends to receive several education funds. On a smaller scale, some local education and charter school foundations have received funding, including KIPP Bay Area Schools, UCSF Foundation.
Community development grants also tend to be general and broad, but focused on established local institutions rather than grassroots efforts. Nancy was director of the National Park Foundation from 2002 to 2008 and was its vice-chairman 2005-2008. Past grantees in this area include the San Francisco Parks Alliance, Trust For Public Land, and Golden Gate National Park Conservancy.
Important Grant Details:
Grants range from $250 up to $172,500, but the average grant size tends to be closer to $500. In a recent fiscal year, the foundation gave away around $500,000.
The foundation keeps a low profile and does not accept unsolicited proposals.
PEOPLE:
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CONTACT:
Nancy & Joachim Bechtle Foundation
307 5th Avenue, 8th Fl
New York, NY 10016
