Jim Breyer and Angela Chao
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: Breyer Capital, Accel Partners
FUNDING AREAS: Education, Community
OVERVIEW: Jim Breyer and Angela Chao oversee the Breyer Family Foundation, which gave away around $1.5 million in a recent year. The family support schools with which they have a personal connection. Angela has ties to the east coast.
BACKGROUND: Jim Breyer graduated with a B.S. from Stanford University in 1983 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1987. He worked for nearly three decades at venture firm Accel Partners and was one of Facebook's first venture investors. Breyer now invests through his own Breyer Capital.
Angela Chao is the the youngest of the six Chao daughters. Her older sister Elaine is married to Senator Mitch McConnell. Angela graduated from Harvard College and received her MBA from Harvard Business School. She was senior vice president of Foremost Group, concentrating on ship operations and management. She is now chair of the company, which was founded by her father. Chao has also given $1 million to McConnell’s campaigns and PAC.
ISSUES:
EDUCATION: The couple support their mutual alma mater Harvard, where Breyer was elected to Harvard Corporation. The extended Chao family also supports Harvard, including a donation in honor of Angela’s late mother. Breyer also supports his alma mater Stanford, home to the Breyer Center for Overseas Studies in Florence. Breyer studied abroad in Florence as an undergraduate student. He has also chaired the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund and was a founding advisory board member of Epicenter, the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation.
Breyer has also supported American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Other grantees have included Woodside School Foundation.
COMMUNITY: Jim Breyer and Angela Chao serve on the chairman’s council of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which they steadily support. Angela is an advisory director on the board of The Met Opera. Breyer is on the board of SFMOMA, which the family supports. They also help fund REDF, a “venture philanthropy that invests exclusively in social enterprises that employ and empower people overcoming barriers to work.”
OTHER: Breyer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, which he supports.
LOOKING FORWARD: Only in his 50s, Breyer is still very much engaged in business, but perhaps philanthropy will ramp up in the coming years. Angela’s interests in the arts and opera along with her work through her family’s Foremost Foundation, should be watched as well.
CONTACT:
The Breyer Family Foundation does not provide a clear avenue for getting in touch with the family but below is an address:
Breyer Family Foundation
314 Lytton Avenue, Suite 200
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 804-7100
LINKS:
