Illustration by Carola Noguer

When I decided this year that I had to turn my attention to fundraising, I first thought: Marc Benioff. Yes, pathetically unoriginal, but as Allen Ginsberg once wrote, “first thought best thought.” After all, doesn’t the Foundation Guide call Benioff “the Outspoken CEO Who Gives Big?”

As with so many foundations, you have to be invited to apply to the Salesforce Foundation. Ugh. Another club to get into. I’ve worked at The New York Times and scored tenure at Berkeley, but even those illustrious institutions offer more guidance to those on the outside looking in.

Did I know anyone on the board? No, of course not. Why aren’t I more social? Why don’t I hobnob, make connections? Well, if I could afford to join the right clubs, I wouldn’t need $200,000, would I? Best to be direct and ask Benioff how to score an invite.

Amazingly, he returns my email within the hour! He CCs Ebony Frelix, his chief philanthropy officer, and soon we have a call set up for the following week. I’m giddy with anticipation. This is going to be so easy.

But I don’t take anything for granted — after all, that’s not how I got to the NYT and Berkeley. Over the next three days, I watch YouTube videos of Frelix describing the foundation’s strategy. I toil over a three-page backgrounder. An illustrator adds drawings. My multimedia advisor formats the pages. The document is to die for.

I send it off. Visions of $200,000 in bills dance in my head.

Next Week, Part II. In the meantime, give early and often

Act 2

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Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

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4 Comments

  1. Nice presentation.
    The only critique:
    Mr. Eskenazi, in this person’s opinion, is the best journalist/researcher/editorialist within the current San Francisco media landscape.
    His articles are gems and are instrumental in making Mission Local a journalistic force.
    May wish to put him more front and center.

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  2. Mission Local has the best stories and best writing. No other journalism can match it. That’s my judgment. I am an English major, appellate lawyer, and avid reader, age 77.

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