Two of the wealthiest groups in San Francisco politics, TogetherSF and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, announced Friday that they would merge and become a single organization under the “Neighbors for a Better San Francisco” name.
The new group would absorb some staff from TogetherSF but offer severance for others. It will be led by Jay Cheng, the current executive director for Neighbors; Cheng’s wife and the CEO of TogetherSF, Kanishka Karunaratne Cheng, will not be involved.
The union comes after the two groups collectively spent more than $10 million in the November election, but had a disastrous showing: They pushed a failed charter-reform measure and the No. 4 finisher in the mayor’s race, Mark Farrell, and only two of the groups’ six endorsed candidates for supervisor won their races.
While leaders at both groups saw the election as a success, top donors in the city said the splintering of the city’s pro-business coalition cost them all.
“We, as a business community, we, as a pragmatic community — we screwed up,” said Chris Larsen late last year. The cryptocurrency billionaire and London Breed backer believes that the focus on unseating Breed by groups like Neighbors and TogetherSF harmed efforts to elect new supervisors and reform the city’s charter. “We focused on the wrong thing.”
Both groups are also alienated from newly inaugurated Mayor Daniel Lurie, whom neither supported in November.
Sources within the Lurie administration have said the new mayor will not work with Cheng, pointing to alleged ethical transgressions under his helm, including a $54,000 ethics fine the group paid last year. “We don’t owe them a goddamn thing,” said one source close to Lurie.
The new group would focus on “improving public safety, supporting quality public schools, strengthening civic engagement, and advancing common-sense policies and solutions in San Francisco,” according to a release.
New political groups spent millions in 2024 — but focused on different races
$8 million
$4.9 million
$2.2 million
$1.6 million
TogetherSF Action
Abundance Network
Neighbors
GrowSF
measure
mayor
supervisor
DCCC
other
measure
mayor
supervisor
DCCC
other
TogetherSF Action
$8 million
Abundance Network
$4.9 million
Neighbors for a Better San Francisco
$2.2 million
GrowSF
$1.6 million
Chart by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission.
Both TogetherSF and Neighbors are core to an interconnected network of big-money donors and staff who have become ascendant in San Francisco post-pandemic, spending millions to remake the city in their image. They have generally pushed for get-tough measures on crime, homelessness, and drug use, while advocating for more market-rate housing.
Neighbors has, in recent years, been the top-spending organization in San Francisco politics, while TogetherSF, bolstered by at least $17 million from venture capitalist Michael Moritz, is perhaps the most well-funded pressure group in San Francisco today. It is unclear whether Moritz will continue to fund the new group — calls and emails were not immediately answered — but he said in the announcement that “Streamlining efforts … will help promote a better San Francisco for everyone.”
The merger comes following a poor performance in the Nov. 5 election: TogetherSF and Moritz put together a $7 million campaign for the failed Prop. D, a charter-reform measure that would have cut city commissions, expanded mayoral power, and curtailed police oversight.
Neighbors backed the measure with $1 million. TogetherSF also went to bat for Mark Farrell, who finished fourth, while savaging Lurie during the campaign, even though Lurie was a No. 2 pick for the group.
While Neighbors technically stayed out of the mayor’s race, its top donors, including the group’s billionaire patron and chair Bill Oberndorf, backed Farrell. Oberndorf spent $1.2 million supporting Farrell and his committee for Prop. D, which Farrell used to boost himself in the mayor’s race.
In Friday’s announcement, both groups said the merger follows their success, since 2020, in “achieving meaningful progress and milestones for San Francisco,” namely helping to elect a more moderate Board of Supervisors.
Since its formation in 2021, TogetherSF has backed five supervisors — Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Danny Sauter, Matt Dorsey, and Rafael Mandelman — who now represent a sizable contingent of a board that has lost its progressive majority.
“When we started this, we had one aligned vote on the Board of Supervisors. Now, we’re looking at having at least five,” Kanishka Cheng said in an interview last month.
This past election, however, TogetherSF and Neighbors only won two of six supervisor seats.
Neighbors, meanwhile, notched its biggest win in 2022, unseating Chesa Boudin with almost $5 million — the majority of the money in his recall — and staunchly supporting Brooke Jenkins’ get-tough tenure since; Jenkins is now eyeing a run for California Attorney General, and will likely count on Neighbors’ support there.
Neighbors also bankrolled the successful school board recalls in 2022.
Both groups have sought to play nice with the incoming administration, saying that Lurie shares their values and that they are ready to put the campaign behind them.
Seems like one more step, towards the billionaire hegemony political element, as aspired to by Moritz, Zuckerberg and the like.
The SF Standard was created by same for the same reasons.
Mergers and acquisitions. The corporate way to play politics.
Because a poverty only city is so much better !
FYI …Corporations are for people every bit as much as non profits are… But corporations do way more actual good.
Obviously you missed the Supreme Court’s pronouncement: CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE.
Actually they’re MORE than people, they’re getting all the rights and privileges with none of the individual responsibilities or criminal liabilities. It’s all the money, all the power, and none of the consequences. Individuals have a limit on donations, corporate PACs do not.
You might also mention that Garry Tan has skipped town to dive into Big Tech’s Trump trough in DC.
Please keep a spotlight trained on these democracy-killing oinkers in the coming years!
And then what bitches? Grow SF, Neighbors for aMore Entitled SF and all the billionaire and oligarch Astroturf groups assume San Francisco’s are stupid, disengaged and just don’t care. Pro tip: we know and understand more than they ever will no matter how many millions they waste.
When progressives, their often corrupt non-profits, and their destructive policies nearly drive San Francisco into the ground, people inevitably turn to alternatives. The progressives had their chance—and they squandered it. Mission Local conveniently omits the fact that Lurie’s own millions of dollars played a significant role in his election, as well as the growing frustration among everyday wage earners like myself who long for pragmatic, non-ideological policies focused on restoring clean and safe communities.
Can they go away already?
When is Nancy Tung’s newly elected DCCC and the newly formed sexual assault task farce (including Bilal Mahmood, Trevor Chandler, Gupta and Sangiardi) going to investigate Jay Cheng for sexual assault? Why aren’t there any women on this task farce?
MAGA Mark fizzled fast because of his inability to connect with Identity Voters and repeated revelations of dirty dealing. Lurie on the other hand came across as a genuine reformer unbeholden to special interests on the Left or Right. Continuing to push MAGA Mark was a huge mistake and probably caused four of their six supervisor candidates to lose
I guess it’s not a surprise to see wealthy interests pushing “law and order” policies – police have been called the army of the rich – but what’s a bit more surprising is to see San Francisco Democrats going for their monied message of “war on the poor”. But I guess the Democrats have become the party of the wealthy now, so many of whom enjoy 6-figure State jobs or similarly cushy sinecures in the world of taxpayer-funded nonprofits.
Ah, ye stalwart progressives, look where the statism you’ve supported, justifying Big Government as the way to help the poor and marginalized, has brought us!