Shared Services Grants

Shared Services Grants is sponsored by Mimi and Peter Haas Fund. Provides funding for shared services that enhance the quality and efficiency of early childhood education programs in San Francisco.

Mimi and Peter Haas Fund | Inside Philanthropy OVERVIEW: The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund is a San Francisco family foundation with a longstanding commitment to early childhood education. Its central goal is to expand access to high-quality early care and education for low-income San Francisco children from birth through age 5 and their families.

IP TAKE: The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund is one of San Francisco’s most important early childhood funders, but it is not an easy prospect for organizations approaching from outside its established network. Its best opportunities are for experienced local nonprofits serving low-income children ages 0 to 5, strengthening the early educator workforce or improving the infrastructure that childcare providers depend on.

Most funding occurs through longstanding partnerships. Grantseekers should concentrate on networking with a current grantee or intermediary, as well as improving their visibility within San Francisco’s early childhood ecosystem, in order to make an introduction here.

Child development centers should also watch for a new round of the fund’s small Program Materials and Equipment grants, the only publicly described application-based opportunity. The broader trustee-initiated portfolio supports prominent civic, cultural, educational and human service organizations, but access is highly relationship dependent.

Unless an organization has strong alignment and a credible connection to the trustees or staff, it will probably find more accessible prospects elsewhere. PROFILE: The San Francisco-based Mimi and Peter Haas Fund (MPHF) was established in 1982. The late Peter Haas was chair of his family’s business, Levi Strauss & Co.

, and was known as “a generous philanthropist and civic leader throughout San Francisco, academia, and in the Jewish community” and “for his socially responsible business ethics and practices. ” Mimi Haas , Peter’s widow, serves as president of the fund. She also serves in trustee positions at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The main focus of the Mimi and Peter Haas Foundation is support for “activities that provide children and families with access to high-quality early childhood programs that are part of a comprehensive, coordinated system. ” Giving for early childhood stems from its Model Centers and Early Care and Education grantmaking initiatives.

A much smaller portion of the fund’s giving stems from its Trustee Initiated Grants , which focus on “strengthening civic and community life in San Francisco. ” Other areas of interest include Jewish causes, health and humanitarian response. The Bay Area of Northern California is the site of most of the fund’s giving, although organizations operating in other parts of the U.S. and globally also receive grants.

Grants for Early Childhood Education Early care and education is the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund’s principal program area. Grantmaking supports San Francisco children ages 0 to 5 from low-income families, as well as the educators, centers and institutions that serve them. While more than half of the fund’s giving supports early childhood initiatives in and around San Francisco, grantmaking also goes to national organizations, as well.

The fund is a member of both the Bay Area Early Childhood Funders and the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative , a national organization. The fund organizes this work through the Model Centers Initiative , professional development, shared services, scholarships, program materials and equipment, support for key early childhood agencies, early literacy and early childhood education in Israel.

The Model Centers Initiative is the fund’s flagship grantmaking program. It provides significant, multiyear support to six San Francisco agencies operating 10 early learning sites in the Bayview, Mission, Tenderloin, Visitacion Valley and other neighborhoods. The initiative began with three sites in 1995.

Its centers now serve more than 600 children and families each year. Funding helps close the gap between the cost of high-quality care and public reimbursement rates and may support curriculum development, teacher training, facilities improvements, outdoor play areas and family services.

Current Model Center agencies are: Cross Cultural Family Center Good Samaritan Family Resource Center Mission Neighborhood Centers South of Market Child Care The Fund works closely with these organizations and convenes participating centers to share practices and address common challenges. This appears to be a stable group of longstanding partners rather than an open-entry initiative.

Early Childhood Workforce Development The Fund supports training, coaching and educational pathways for early childhood educators via Professional Development support. Grants may help teachers earn credentials or bachelor’s degrees and strengthen the quality of teaching in child development centers. Partners include the San Francisco Unified School District and EDvance College.

The Fund awarded EDvance $450,000 in 2024 for San Francisco early childhood workforce development. Shared-services grants help early childhood providers reduce administrative burdens by sharing functions such as enrollment, finance, human resources and facilities maintenance.

The Fund helped launch the Bay Area’s first shared-services alliance in 2015 and continues to support the San Francisco Early Learning Alliance and related infrastructure. This work is aimed at strengthening providers’ operations so that center staff can devote more time and resources to children and families. The Scholarship Fund Program provides tuition assistance to families whose children attend selected early childhood centers.

Participating organizations include the Model Center agencies and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Scholarships appear to be administered through participating centers. The Fund does not advertise a direct application process for individual families.

Program Materials and Equipment The Program Materials and Equipment Program makes small grants to improve the quality, safety and learning environments of San Francisco child development centers serving low-income children. Grants of $3,000 or $5,000 may support books, art materials, classroom supplies and indoor or outdoor play equipment. In 2022, the fund awarded $268,000 to 66 centers serving 2,442 children.

Past recipients include Buen Dia Family School, Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center, Kai Ming Head Start and Wu Yee Children’s Services. The Fund states that San Francisco child development centers may apply, making this the clearest exception to its general prohibition on unsolicited proposals. However, it does not currently post an application, deadline or funding calendar.

Prospective applicants should confirm that a current round is operating before preparing a request. Early Childhood Agencies and Family Support The Fund provides core support to organizations that offer technical assistance, educational programming and family services to early childhood centers. Grantees include the Bay Area Discovery Museum and Safe & Sound.

This funding supports organizations that strengthen the broader early childhood ecosystem rather than operating exclusively as individual childcare centers. Early literacy grants support organizations that help young children develop language, reading and writing skills and an early interest in books. Grantees include Tandem, Partners in Early Learning and Jumpstart for Young Children.

This program focuses on early childhood and school readiness rather than literacy programs for older students. Early Childhood Education in Israel The Fund also supports efforts to develop high-quality early childhood services in Israel for children ages 0 to 3 from Arab and Jewish backgrounds. Its goals include strengthening early development and providing comprehensive support to families.

Grantees include Hagar: Jewish-Arab Education for Equality and the First Thousand Days program developed with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. No open application process is described for this work. Grants for K-12 Education Although early childhood education is the fund’s primary programmatic interest, recent grants also support K–12 education, teacher development and educational institutions.

A 2024 grant of about $470,000 supported a San Francisco Unified School District pre-K–3 initiative. Other recent education grantees include EDvance College, Teach For America, Spark* SF Public Schools, Children’s Council of San Francisco and Children Now.

Organizations working beyond early childhood are most likely to receive support through an existing partnership or a trustee-initiated grant rather than through a broadly accessible education program. Grants for Civic and Community Life Trustee-initiated grants support civic and community organizations, particularly in San Francisco.

The Fund names City Arts & Lectures, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the San Francisco Free Clinic and KQED as examples. Recent tax records show support for homelessness, poverty reduction, public space, arts and culture, health, education and community institutions. The largest reported 2024 grant was $2.

75 million in general operating support for Tipping Point Community. Illuminate the Arts received $500,000 for the Bay Lights 360 project. These grants reflect the trustees’ interests and relationships and should not be understood as open or competitive funding programs.

Grants for Arts and Culture Arts and culture are recurring interests within the trustee-initiated portfolio. San Francisco organizations are prominent, but the fund also supports major institutions outside California. Recent grantees include Illuminate the Arts, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and other museums, performing arts organizations and cultural institutions.

Mimi Haas’ board affiliations with institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center may help explain some of this giving, but the foundation does not operate a public arts grant program. Arts organizations without an established relationship to the trustees are unlikely to gain access through a cold inquiry.

Grants for Housing, Homeleness and Human Services Recent grants indicate a substantial interest in homelessness, poverty and human services in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tipping Point Community has been a particularly significant grantee, receiving $2. 75 million in general operating support in 2024 and additional funding related to San Francisco housing and homelessness.

This work falls under trustee-initiated giving rather than a named housing or homelessness program. Organizations in this space are most competitive when they have strong local visibility, established leadership and connections to the fund’s existing civic and philanthropic networks. The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund awarded approximately $15.

2 million through 238 grants in 2024. The median award was $15,000, and reported grants ranged from $1,000 to $2. 75 million.

The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund does not accept unsolicited proposals . It does not publish a general application, letter-of-inquiry process or annual deadline. Its website contact form is intended for other matters and should not be treated as an invitation to submit funding requests.

The limited exception is the Program Materials and Equipment program, which the fund describes as application-based. San Francisco child development centers may apply for grants of $3,000 or $5,000 when a round is available, but no current application period is posted. For other early childhood funding, the most realistic approach is to become visible within San Francisco’s existing early learning system.

Strong prospects are likely to have relationships with current Model Center agencies, the San Francisco Early Learning Alliance, EDvance College, Children’s Council of San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District or other established grantees and public partners. Submit general inquiries to this fund via its contact page or by telephone at 415-296-9249.

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