East Coast vs. West Coast Philanthropy

East Coast vs. West Coast. A classic battle - in music, in fashion, in food…and in philanthropy.

Fully dissecting the philanthropic history and culture of each region would take a book. What follows is the tip of the iceberg - but it's a conversation worth having, because we have a lot to learn from one another.

I recently had a conversation with a potential client who now leads a San Francisco-based organization but built her career in New York City's philanthropic world. She was describing navigating two very different fundraising cultures - and it struck me that we should talk about this more!

Our team travels between both regions regularly. We know that the counsel we give in one place doesn't always translate in another.

Here's what we've observed.

New York City: Where philanthropy has deep roots and deep expectations

The land of the Rockefellers, the Astors, the Carnegies. New York City has the longest-standing, most robust culture of philanthropic events in the country - and for better or for worse, there is a social scene tightly connected to the philanthropic world, with much of the brokering happening at the events themselves.

A few things that make NYC distinctive:

There is a strong culture of this is how it's done - and that is actually a gift. Organizations don't need to reinvent the wheel. Guests know what to expect and show up accordingly. The muscle is already built, and it has been built over generations.

Industries anchor donor communities in a way that is uniquely New York. An education organization's donor list might be the who's who of hedge funds. A social services agency's donors might be the who's who of fashion. The industry-cause alignment is tight, deliberate, and deeply cultivated. It gives organizations a very clear road map for who to go after and how.

And New York is simply a city where people go out. Being seen, being present, being in the room - it's woven into the city's DNA. That energy fuels philanthropy in a way that's hard to replicate elsewhere.

The event formats NYC is known for reflect all of this: grand galas at iconic venues, high-production live programming, celebrity honorees, and paddle raises that move rooms. The Robin Hood Foundation Gala. The Met Gala. The God's Love We Deliver Golden Heart Awards. These aren't just fundraisers - they're cultural moments.

The Bay Area: Enormous wealth, a more complicated relationship with giving

The Bay Area's philanthropic landscape is much more recent - and far more complicated. Its roots are in social justice activism and movement-building, then dramatically reshaped by the tech industry's rise.

The numbers are staggering. Between 2008 and 2013, total Silicon Valley-based giving from individuals rose from $1.9 billion to $4.8 billion (sources below). The Silicon Valley Community Foundation has grown into one of the largest grant makers in the country. And yet - there is a paradox at the heart of Bay Area philanthropy that local nonprofit leaders navigate every day.​

Silicon Valley's richest donors gave $1.52 billion to philanthropy in a recent year - but just 8.6% of that went to fund local needs. A full 79% left the region entirely. The wealth is here. The giving impulse is here. But local organizations are often not the primary beneficiaries - and that is a real challenge.​

The culture of Silicon Valley philanthropy is marked by youthful donors with enormous resources, a disinclination to give to traditional institutions, and a desire to "disrupt" - applying close scrutiny, demanding metrics, and measuring philanthropic returns the way they measure business ones.​

Bay Area donors - especially younger ones - want to be hands-on, involved, connected to impact.​

There is a long-standing "society" focused on philanthropy here - events like the Tipping Point Gala, which raised a record-breaking $20 million in 2025, prove the Bay Area can go big. But the social-philanthropic infrastructure isn't as deep or as ritualized as New York. The donor cultivation norms are less established. And the ask, in many cases, has to be made differently.

The generational shift - and why it matters especially in the Bay Area

This is where it gets interesting. And where Bay Area organizations need to pay particularly close attention.

An estimated $84 trillion is expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to younger generations over the next 30 years. That wealth transfer is coming - and the next generation of donors has fundamentally different expectations about how they want to give, and why.​

Gen Z and Millennials give at high rates. 84% of Millennials already give to charity. These aren't passive donors waiting to be cultivated in the traditional sense. They aspire to be seen as givers, volunteers, advocates, and changemakers - and they are taking a holistic approach to philanthropy that extends well beyond writing a check.​

Gen Z is actually the generation most excited for fundraising events. But what they want from those events is different. Younger philanthropists prioritize transparency and active participation over formal, sit-down dinners. They want to feel the mission, not just hear about it. They want to be in conversation, not in an audience.

This is an enormous opportunity - particularly in the Bay Area, where the next wave of tech wealth is younger, more values-driven, and more skeptical of traditional philanthropic formats than any donor generation before it.

What each region can learn from the other

For Bay Area organizations: New York has something worth studying. The intentionality of cultivating industry-specific donor communities. The investment in events as a relationship-building tool over time - not just a one-time ask.

For New York organizations: the Bay Area donor's appetite for impact, proximity, and involvement is a signal worth heeding everywhere. As one fundraising strategist put it: "The appetite for passive participation is diminishing; donors no longer want to be mere spectators at these events. They are looking for engagement, interaction, and a sense of connection. They want to be part of something meaningful, to feel that they are contributing to a cause in a significant and experiential way." Donors increasingly want to be partners in the work - not just patrons of it.​

And across both coasts, the event format itself is evolving. The era of the long, speech-heavy gala dinner is giving way to something more experiential, more intimate, more mission-forward. Smaller events. Immersive storytelling. Interactive moments that bring guests into the work rather than presenting it to them from a stage.

And yet - the fundamentals haven't changed. Building relationships over time. Getting champions of your work to open their networks. Demonstrating impact in ways that move people. Showing, again and again, how your organization makes the world more just, more equitable, more whole. Those things were true a hundred years ago in New York, and they're true today in the Bay Area. The formats evolve. The human need to be moved, to belong to something meaningful - that doesn't.

That evolution is something we think about deeply with every client - on both coasts.

Because, at the end of the day, the goal is the same whether you're in Manhattan or San Francisco: build a room full of people who leave more connected to your mission than when they walked in. Everything else is regional flavor.

As I said - this is the tip of the iceberg. And there’s a whole other conversation about ways to make philanthropy stronger, better, more democratized - but that’s a conversation for a different day.