| Notes |
$12 million to help Tipping Point build dreams
By Catherine Bigelow Updated 3:52 pm PDT, Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Tipping Point benefit co-chair Heather Ive and her husband, Apple designer Sir Jony Ive, flank TP founder Daniel Lurie. Photo: Catherine Bigelow, Special To The Chronicle
Photo: Catherine Bigelow, Special To The Chronicle
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Tipping Point benefit co-chair Heather Ive and her husband, Apple designer Sir Jony Ive, flank TP founder Daniel Lurie.
With a theme like the Party to End Poverty, Tipping Point founder-CEO Daniel Lurie definitely weighed down that scale last week at Pier 48, where his Bay Area poverty-fighting organization raised a record $12 million.
Those funds (which, thanks to the generosity of TP board members, all go back out the door to those in need) will allow Tipping Point, which has served more than 365,000 residents since its inception, to add five grantees to its current roster of 45 Bay Area charitable organizations.
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"We're at a critical time in our city's history. There are more resources than ever before and we see that success all around us - from new buildings and construction to a flurry of IPOs. Yet 1 in 5 people still live in poverty," Lurie said. "So it's up to us. Every single child in this region deserves to dream of becoming an engineer at Google, a Fortune 500 CEO or a teacher."
That dream is gaining traction. The top take raised at this seventh Tipping Point benefit is in addition to $10 million pledged by a coalition of Bay Area companies (including Google, IfOnly, Apple, LinkedIn, Jawbone) via the SFGives antipoverty fund (brainchild of Salesforce.com billionaire Marc Benioff), administered by Lurie's organization.
And just in case folks weren't digging deeply enough in their pockets, the Brin Wojcicki Foundation (that'd be courtesy of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his estranged wife, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki) provided a $1 million match for Fund-a-Need pledges of $25K or less.
This excellent evening, which starred a set by OneRepublic, was expertly organized by a stellar cast of co-chairs: Fortress Investment Principal Pete Briger and his wife, Devon; Silver Lake Managing Partner Egon Durban and his wife, Abby; Heather Ive and her husband, Apple designer Sir Jony Ive.
Among top tippers: Lurie's wife, Becca Prowda, and mom, Mimi Haas, and dad, Rabbi Brian Lurie; TP Board President Thomas Laffont; Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom; Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and his wife, Lorin; Pam Baer and her husband, Giants CEO Larry Baer; Juliet de Baubigny and her pal, media mogul Rupert Murdoch; philanthropist Doris Fisher; TP trustee Kate Harbin Clammer and her husband, Adam Clammer; Jawbone founder Hosain Rahman and his wife, Alicia Engstrom; Roger and Sloan Barnett; Sabrina Buell and Yves Béhar; TP Leadership Council member and PlumpJack VP Jeremy Scherer and his wife, Sabrina; angel investor Ron Conway and his wife, Gayle; Giants exec Stephen Revetria; Jane Gruber and her husband, TP Leadership Council member Wyatt Gruber; TP trustee Alec Perkins and his wife, Serena; Dr. Nadine Burke and her husband, TP Leadership Council member Arno Harris; TP trustee Chris James and his wife, Bradley; TP trustee Katie Schwab Paige and her husband, Matt Paige; and Laura Perloff with her husband, music impresario Gregg Perloff, who, via his Another Planet Entertainment, helped corral the evening's musical entertainment.
And expect more Tipping Point musicales, as Perloff just joined the Tipping Point board, which is top-heavy with tech titans and business barons.
Channeling Lurie's construction metaphor, designer Stanlee Gatti transformed the cavernous pier into the most elegant ever construction site: Road sign decor read, "Good Work Ahead," and long tables in white linens were wrapped in orange caution tape.
In the midst of this swirl, artist Wendy Macnaughton live-sketched the soiree and her work was later projected onstage. Oh, and Gatti also landed a disco-ball-adorned robot, created by Bot & Dolly, which helped announce the night's final tally.
Atop those tables was a delectable Paula LeDuc dinner (asparagus salad, roasted game hen, banana cream cake). And bidding during the lively auction was inspired by Cade wines, Greg Lindgren and Jon Gasparini's Rye on the Road cocktails and the clever cajoling of Christie's auctioneer Lydia Fenet.
But the heart of the evening belonged to a joyful break-dance performance by UC Davis student Carlos Romero, whose life, and those of his brothers, Irvin and Michael Romero, has been transformed by Tipping Point grantee Build.org.
"This is my city. This is our city. And I'm not satisfied with the do-no-harm approach," declared Lurie. "Programs like Build.org don't just change lives, they change entire families and communities."
Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicle's society correspondent. E-mail: missbigelow@sfgate.com |