“After rocking, my next-favorite activity right now is San Francisco politics,” wrote developer Nick Podell in 2022, praising advocacy efforts during the city’s contentious redistricting saga.
“For the first time in the 40 years that I’ve lived in the City,” Podell continued, “there is a large coordinated centrist/moderate movement to take on Progressive power.”
He should know: Podell, who has real-estate interests in the Mission and throughout the Bay, is president of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy, a “social welfare” 501(c)(4) organization that has poured millions into local campaigns over the past few years.
The nonprofit has used its deep pockets to fund redistricting advocacy, to help secure results like the Chesa Boudin and school board recalls, and to support media organizations sympathetic to its political aims. It has already spent hundreds of thousands on upcoming 2024 ballot measures; it is likely to spend hundreds of thousands more.
And Neighbors is far from alone.
A smörgåsbord of nonprofits and PACs are already spending big in 2024. Some were active during the last election cycle, like GrowSF and TogetherSF Action. Others, like Abundant SF and the Committee to Fix SF Government, are new groups run by some familiar faces.
While the policies and strategies of the groups are all a little different, they are pulling in the same general direction. This constantly evolving coalition is largely unified by a desire for more police funding, harsher penalties for drug crime, more support for housing developers and housing construction, and the concentration of mayoral power. A huge proportion of the network’s cash comes from extremely wealthy tech and real estate donors.
“I have not, in the past 15 years, seen this level of organization,” said Todd David, co-founder of Abundant SF, a group that primarily aims to back YIMBY measures and candidates.
“The larger the coalition you can put together who agree on a collection of items, the higher probability of success,” he said. “And there is a lot of alignment on [the] candidates and ballot measures we are supporting.”
Campaign-finance filings released this month offer a glimpse into how big money may influence local politics in 2024. A lot can change between now and the March and November elections, but we can already see many of the key players in this ecosystem — their connections, shared donors, past victories, and emerging spheres of influence.
Click on the nodes below to start exploring.
Who are the donors?
It is not possible to see every donation to every group that exerts political influence over San Francisco. Campaign disclosures do not typically need to be filed immediately, so some donations only emerge after several months have passed. Some minor payments are exempt from disclosure, and others can be obscured through complex chains of transactions. Some payments to nonprofits are never disclosed at all.
Because of this, the money flows we have presented are certainly an underestimate of the overall network. Nonetheless, we can see many donations and can discern some patterns.
Old money
One significant donor group could be described as old money: Wealth coming from the scions of rich families, or from those who have given to political causes for decades. Many of these individuals have links to real estate.
For instance, Brandon Shorenstein, part of the Shorenstein real estate dynasty, has given at least $766,000 to Neighbors. He also bankrolled the 2020 nonprofit San Francisco That Works For Everyone, which campaigned against homeless encampments — an effort that fizzled after millionaire backer Daniel Lurie, now a mayoral candidate, stepped away.
Kilroy Realty is one of Neighbors’ biggest donors, having contributed some $1.2 million to the nonprofit to date. It is run by John Kilroy, who has likened San Francisco to an addict who has hit rock bottom.
Diane “Dede” Wilsey, a San Francisco socialite and major Republican donor, is connected by blood to the Dow Chemical fortune, and by marriage to the late real estate magnate Al Wilsey. She gave $100,000 to 2022’s pro-housing Prop. D, $210,000 to the campaign against keeping JFK Drive open to pedestrians, and $250,000 to the nonprofit Progress SF, which supported several pro-business causes and candidates.
The aforementioned Daniel Lurie is an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, and has several links to this big money ecosystem. His mother, Miriam “Mimi” Haas, is one of Neighbors’ biggest donors. Lurie associates Christopher James and John Pritzker, who worked with Lurie on his anti-poverty nonprofit Tipping Point, have also given hundreds of thousands to Neighbors. And, just last month, his brother Ari dropped $250,000 in favor of a Lurie-backed ballot measure (Prop. E) to loosen restrictions on the police department.
Major venture capitalists and investors such as Ron Conway, Arthur Rock and Bill Oberndorf have also donated millions collectively to this big money ecosystem.
New money
But a younger and newer group has thrown itself into the arena of political advocacy as well, contributing cash and leading campaigns. This new money is largely drawn from tech.
Tech workers — and partners — Siva Raj and Autumn Looijen helped run the school board recall. Techies Steven Buss and Sachin Agarwal run GrowSF, with Garry Tan — CEO of tech incubator Y Combinator and major political donor — on the board.
Tech founder and investor Chris Larsen, one of the world’s richest people, is a top donor to GrowSF, Neighbors, Progress SF and a number of propositions; he has already donated just shy of $1 million to 2024 races alone.
The list goes on: Y Combinator founder Jessica Livingston was a major donor to the recalls and to GrowSF. The “PayPal Mafia” alumni David Sacks and Jeremy Stoppelman are major donors to the big-money network as well. Tech investor — and billionaire patron of The San Francisco Standard — Michael Moritz was a major Neighbors donor in 2020, and has this year given over a million dollars to upcoming ballot measure campaigns. Tech founder Zack Rosen is the main backer of Abundant SF, and tech investor Emmett Shear has poured hundreds of thousands into propositions and races over the past several years.
“I spent my 20s and early 30s working very, very hard,” wrote Shear over email. “As my career became more established, I’ve had time and money to invest in other things.”
“If I had to guess, the same is true of many other late-30s/early-40s people who live in SF,” he continued. “If there recently are a lot of [Y Combinator]-associated folks involved in local politics, it’s probably because YC was founded in 2005, and most of the early founders who moved to SF to start companies turned 40 recently.”
What are their 2024 aims?
These political-advocacy groups have already scored some victories over the past few years. They include the school board and Boudin recalls, plus the re-election of Brooke Jenkins as district attorney, and the election of supervisors Joel Engardio and Matt Dorsey.
Money from Neighbors was also used in an effort to influence redistricting via payments to the nonprofit ConnectedSF, run by Marie Hurabiell. The process ended with a map many considered to diminish the power of progressive voters compared to the 2010 map, and which was certainly pivotal in the election of Engardio: He won by 460 votes after his home precinct and three others were added to District 4.
But the Board of Supervisors still firmly leans progressive. One of the main goals of the new PACs and nonprofits this year will be to establish a majority of allies on the board. PACs to “Dump Dean Preston” and “Clear Out Connie Chan” have been raising funds since 2022, and challengers like Danny Sauter in District 3 and Trevor Chandler in District 9 could bolster the city’s less-progressive faction.
Although the supervisorial elections are in November, March may still be pivotal. Candidates like Chandler and Marjan Philhour in District 1 are raising funds to sit on San Francisco’s Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC), a move that allows them to build up name recognition and a war chest by raking in unlimited personal and corporate donations — unlike in other local races.
In March, Prop. E, which seeks to loosen restrictions on the police department, will be another priority. Already Chris Larsen, Emmett Shear, and Ron Conway are appearing at the top of the donor list. And, in November, propositions to cut back on committees and enhance mayoral power have already attracted more than $1.6 million.
Of course, the progressive faction of the city has its own base of donors, most notably organized labor. But they are already being significantly outspent in this year’s races — a pattern we can expect to continue if recent years are any guide.
“Things ebb and flow in San Francisco,” said David, the co-founder of Abundant SF. “At the moment, there is really good organizing on this side of the street.”
Methodology
Data was sourced from state and local campaign filings, alongside disclosures such as 990s. Donation amounts should reflect current disclosures, but will miss payments that have not yet been declared.
This web includes major donors, advocacy groups, and causes, but is not a comprehensive collection of all spending and giving by each entity. Nodes are sized depending on the number of links to other nodes.
As filings are released in 2024, we may update this item. If you spot any errors in our interactive graphic, please let us know at will@missionlocal.com.
This fantastic local reporting. Thank you for the legwork to bring us this story
Great investigation and reporting. And great interactive graphic! Thanks, Will and Mission Local. Hands down the best political reporting in the Bay Area.
congratulations to mission local on this excellent reporting.
you’ve made it to the international scene with a collaborative story in the guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence
keep it up.
As the saying goes, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Well done.
SF’s reputation is in the toilet right now. Thanks Mission Local for highlighting these groups efforts to improve SF for the better.
Mission residents have seen enough of the bleak, dirty streets, crime, homelessness, and disorder that years of progressive rule have brought us.
Enough of the bs, let’s get this city back to being the internationally recognized jewel it once was.
“The internationally recognized jewel it once was”? When was that? During the 2008 Depression? The Dot Com bust? How about the gang wars of the 90’s, the Crack/Cocaine wars of the 80s and the evictions and gentrifications that followed? The corrupt Alioto/Labor administrations of the 60’s? How about the 30s when the City and State killed waterfront workers who wanted a union? The 1850s when New York transplanted gold diggers hung Chilean and Chinese “immigrants”? San Francisco has long long long been a site of immense inequity which has played out in many forms. What has made it a jewel of international renown, and still does, is its physical attractiveness, the proximity of Mt Tam, Pt Reyes, the north and east bay areas, and of course — the fog. SF’s international reputation has more to do with bacon-wrapped hot dogs than the suffocating and fraudulent politics we have endured, now approaching new heights or new lows, depending on your point of view.
Oy vey. I swear you rich folks are afraid of your own shadows. If SF is hurting, it is in part because people like you TRASH THE PLACE.
There are no good arguments against the actual policies under discussion – things like removing tents from the streets, stopping open fentanyl dealing and use, building more housing of all kinds, doing more to protect small businesses and residents from crime – so progressives are going for a pure guilt by association play this year. It’s the best they’ve got.
The point of the article was not to argue policy provisions but to expose the concentrated money behind seemingly independent “ citizens” groups. It is an elaborate and expensive form of “astro-turfing” used by oil companies and other big corporations to hide behind fraudulent “grass roots” groups. If you agree with their extreme positions of undoing efforts go make the SFPD transparent and accountable, to undo regulations which are the only provisions that affordable housing will ever get built, to drug test welfare recipients ( but not corporate welfare recipients) and throw the homeless in jail, then vote for these guys, but don’t pretend this is a “mass movement”.
Perhaps you’re right that these folks are pissing in the wind and San Francisco voters are just fine with the status quo of 800+ overdose deaths a year, tents on the street, and an uncontrolled night market for fentanyl and stolen goods. We’ll find out come March 5 and November 5!
But you didn’t give a fair and accurate accounting of all seemingly independent groups. You only focused on the moderates- who are new to the table here. The progressives have decades of dark money funding from billionaires millionaire tech Vc … sound familiar? This is unethical journalism and should have been touted as the progressive opinion piece, not legitimate journalism. Serious real Journalist have a standard.
Since these are “mom and apple pie” issues, what are the billionaire $ actually going to do — build more jails, bring back mental institutions, do something for residential construction that isn’t already mandated at the state level? All I see are useless recalls — what did the Boudin & school board recalls actually accomplish? How about we hand the billionaires some paint brushes for graffiti abatement and see how long it takes them to be truly interested in “helping” San Francisco.
Their only goal is to “own the libs”.
An election with a bunch of Drama Props that cost a ton and tangibly do nothing other than fuel a wave of outrage which candidates try to ride to (re)election without having to form serious policy platforms?
Sounds like business as usual in SF.
But it comes down to the voters- unless we do our due diligence and refuse to advance vapor-policy props, they’ll continue to be the norm. If we keep passing seemingly well intentioned nonsense like Prop G, where voters are asking the wrong civic body (board of supes) to do something the new superintendent and board of ed are ALREADY doing, we get what deserve: a prop system that is actually just a fundraising system that gets nothing done. Clearly a prop telling the wrong people to do something already happening should be a ‘no’ vote, but no one wants to seem anti-education so they’ll vote ‘yes’. Many political groups supporting the prop will fund raise a ton off of confusing voters. Many political groups will take credit for the ‘win’ of ‘fixing math’ and have cover for wasting your donations, wasting time, and measurably accomplishing nothing. Wash, rinse, repeat for Prop Whatever on Issue X for Infinity.
Thank you ML!! I was waiting for someone to expose the small group of conservatives spending insane amounts of money to Make AllSF Ghastly(for poor people) Again. Those of us who don’t approve of rich people buying elections and support transparency and democracy should fight this shit with everything we have. Because whether voter agrees or disagrees with me on a particular issue facing our city, I’d like their opinion to be based on facts and arguments one way or the other and not propaganda paid for by billionaires with special interests.
Repeal, there is nothing inherently wrong with spending money on getting ideas across to the voters. After all ML does that all the time.
The important point is that it is disclosed.
Good reporting, but not sure of the implication that these folks are “buying” elections – my sense is many San Franciscans broadly accept the current progressive administration has failed, and are ready for a new, likely more centrist approach.
“Prop. D ,campaign against keeping JFK Drive open to pedestrians”
Prop. D was actually to keep JFK CLOSED
for all Private cars ( including local businesses vehicles and parents).
What do the solid lines — versus dotted lines — signifiy?
How long before the MAGA RNC rides into SF and makes it demand$ from these big tech coalitions for its Vig?
NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.
Great reporting, thanks! Quick question: The Guardian story presents this as a collaborative investigation between them and Mission Local, but there was no mention in the ML story about The Guardian. Was it a collaboration? Did ML not give credit to The Guardian, or did The Guardian take credit it didn’t deserve?
Hi Chris —
Mission Local provided Will Jarrett’s amazing interactive tool to the Guardian to be used in its story. That’s a collaboration. But the stand-alone that you read on our site was produced only by Mission Local.
Nobody has slighted anyone. We’d love to work with them again and, as far as I can tell, they feel the same way.
Yours,
JE
Great reporting by Mission Local. Every dollar spent in politics should always be public knowledge, as this impacts all of our lives.
That said, I think it would be the wrong takeaway for people to assume that this money is crafting public opinion and not the other way around. The recalls were not close races. The current polling on Props E & F suggest massive blowout victories for both.
The people with means might be writing fat checks for these issues, but make no mistake, San Franciscans largely agree with the policies. When you’ve had your car or storefront broken into, or see police tape next to your building because a homeless person got stabbed, or tents on fire, nothing else matters. And it doesn’t take a Together SF pamphlet to tell you that.
SF Progressives simply don’t get it.
Anyone who is able to think critically will see this as a Lazy and sloppy propagandist editorial. How? How do you mention the money on one side with out mentioning the 100’s of millions of dollars yearly that’s been pouring into the progressive side for 15 plus years now also given by billionaires tech VC and the City of sf Unions? Explain This is not ethical journalism. This is a progressive commercial aired through a progressive news rag.
Thank you for an excellent article! “Both sides” whingeing misses insights offered here: generational big money supports harsh, incarceral & invasive responses to economic challenges facing many San Franciscans; for which unions mediate by advocating for “living wages, adequate healthcare, and pensions.”
Congratulations on your piece in the Guardian which I saw before I saw this.
Funding should be out in the open for sure. But I think a lot of SF voters have a problem with extremists like Preston and Chesa, and prefer the city to have more moderate officers and policies. So I do hope you maintain balance in your coverage here.
Puh-leease.
You’re silent unless people you disagree with are funding political campaigns. Where are your complaints on Soros and Hastings?
If you opposed funding of political campaigns you’d have partisan support.
You don’t, and so your transparent hypocrisy makes you an laughing stock! Hold yourself to the standards you expect of your scapegoats!
This groups identity politics which holds that all that people from one’s own group are good and all that disagree, and all who point to problems and the bad actors and the bad outcomes are the enemy and are evil is what’s ruining progressivism. Outcomes matter numskulls! Look upon the outcomes and demand outcomes as Progressives once did. *Allow* the outcomes to be measured and hold NPOs accountable for waste that fails to help the poor! I want much of what our progressives want but what has brought us to where we are is fecklessness, silence and consent to failure: Support for a school board that sowed community division and failed to bring opportunity for demographics with 20% making grade level. The destruction of small business. Rampant opposition to housing at all levels (<1 new housing permit per day!). Supoprt and consent to the abuse and an annual massacre of 750 people downtown. $14B and can't provide shelters for the homeless. Thieves in the party who steal election petitions – silence! Rapists in the party! – silence. Abusive drunks and misogynists – welcomed as leaders. Apologists for people who murdered for sport. The president of the board tried to take away voting right from voting while at the same time claiming he supports participatory democracy. On and on. Please are right to ridicule. Read the room.
Something something tech workers, something Republicans? JFC! Check yourselves. Hold yourselves to the standards you demands of your critics.
Continue to fails to do so and our progressive left deserves no place in SF politics.
This story got me to thinking about how San Francisco got into this difficult state of affairs that needs to be fixed. My comments turned into this : https://sebraleaves.medium.com/san-francisco-has-become-the-poster-child-for-how-to-not-to-grow-a-city-a145c3f42eb5
These so-called moderate groups are merely a step towards the conservatives who will actually save this City and State. It’s about time that we returned sanity to government. No more freebies to those who won’t work to improve their own lot in life. And no more money to the NGOs and individuals who suck at government’s teat.
So who the heck do you think will work with the homeless, the drug addicted etc? Local churches? GMAB I am so sick of hearing this demand. As if these organizations do nothing unless they 100% solve homeless or addiction.