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Affiliated Organizations
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
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We are affiliated with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation – created through the merger of Community Foundation Silicon Valley and Peninsula Community Foundation – by virtue of being an IRS-recognized supporting organization of it. We received our 501(c)(3) designation through our special relationship with the community foundation and are co-located with it in Mountain View, California.
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Silicon Valley Community Foundation is a leading voice and catalyst for innovative solutions to Silicon Valley’s most challenging problems. The foundation was created in 2006 through the landmark merger of Community Foundation Silicon Valley, our former supported organization, and Peninsula Community Foundation, and launched in January 2007.
Serving San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, Silicon Valley Community Foundation is a partner and resource to organizations improving the quality of life in its region, and to those who want to give back locally, nationally and internationally. Thousands of individuals, families, corporations, nonprofit and government organizations, and community leaders work with it to address critical needs and make an impact through programs and philanthropy.
Over five decades, both parent foundations established a tradition of generosity that led many people to invest their time and philanthropic dollars to support the common good. Understanding that community issues do not stop at county lines and that greater social impact could be realized by acting regionally, the Boards of Directors of Community Foundation Silicon Valley and Peninsula Community Foundation approved a memorandum of understanding on July 12, 2006, to form a united foundation. The result, at its inception, was the fourth largest community foundation in the nation with more than $1.5 billion in assets and more than 1,400 philanthropic funds.
Glaucoma Research Foundation
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The Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) was created in 1978 and is the oldest national voluntary health agency dedicated to protecting the sight and independence of people with glaucoma.
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Catalyst for a Cure (CFC) was the innovative partnership established in June 2001 between the Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation and GRF. Its purpose was to assemble, then support, a consortium of scientists - with expertise and the potential for new insights – to use recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, molecular biology and genetics to identify and answer key questions about the causes and mechanisms that lead a person to develop glaucoma.
Our goal was to make significant progress in finding the cause(s) and critical mechanisms that result in the onset of glaucoma. We expected these breakthroughs to come through developing, facilitating and supporting a collective enterprise. This strategy engaged individuals whose expertise was willingly shared so the research activities were both effective and synergistic. By leveraging our resources with those of GRF in this partnership, we expected to maximize the return on our mutual investment.
CFC, in conjunction with an outside advisory board, provided strong planning, due diligence, and oversight. A jointly executed plan designed and implemented by the consortium successfully focused on new research questions and developed a new working hypothesis about the disease’s development. (As of December 2004, this working hypothesis had not been published.) The Kirsch Foundation and GRF each provided more than $725,000 in funds over the first, three-year phase of the project.
As of December 2004, the Kirsch Foundation ended its participation in CFC due to limited assets. GRF is continuing CFC for another 3 to 5 years with an expanded budget and the Kirsch Foundation’s best wishes for success.
Read about the "Collaborations" on our Medical and Scientific Page.
CoreMatter/AllCharities.com/Internet Giving Foundation
Until April 2001, we partnered with CoreMatter, formerly known as AllCharities.com, to enable individuals to make secure donations on-line to any IRS-registered 501(c)(3) organization in the United States. The Kirsch Foundation did business as the Internet Giving Foundation (IGF) from October 1999 through March 2001 for purposes of receiving contributions and disbursing grants in its partnership with CoreMatter, Inc.
As of April 2001, the IGF name reverted to CoreMatter since the partnership between CoreMatter and the Foundation ended by mutual agreement on March 31, 2001. Subsequently, CoreMatter has gone out of business and the Kirsch Foundation has no continuing involvement in any on-line donation activities.
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