SOURCE OF WEALTH: Gruber & McBaine Capital Management
FUNDING AREAS: Arts, Education, Human Rights, Progressive & Investigative Media, Women’s Issues
OVERVIEW: Jon and Linda Gruber conduct their philanthropy through the Gruber Family Foundation, which has a website and contact information, but does not accept unsolicited proposals. According to available tax filings, the foundation awarded just under $3.3 million in grants in 2018. Jon Gruber has strongly supported his alma mater, MIT. The Bay Area is also an important region of giving.
BACKGROUND: Jon D. Gruber graduated from MIT in 1964. In 1987, he founded Gruber & McBaine Capital Management in San Francisco.
ISSUES:
ARTS: The Gruber Family Foundation’s grantmaking has supported SFMOMA, Asian Art Museum Foundation, Bay Area Discovery Museum, and The Public Theater. Linda Gruber serves on the board of SFMOMA.
EDUCATION: The Grubers have supported Jon Gruber’s alma mater MIT, where the couple’s son also graduated. In the late 1990s, Gruber established a career development professorship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. More recently, Gruber gave a $1 million gift to MIT OpenCourseWare, a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content, available to the world.
Apart from this work, the Grubers have supported Cate School, Groton School, St. Bernard’s School, and Wellesley College, where Linda graduated.
WOMEN’S ISSUES: Linda serves on the board of the Global Fund for Women, which the family supports. Other grantees have included Young Women’s Leadership Network, Chicken & Egg Pictures (cofounded by Gruber Foundation board member Julie Parker Benello), Planned Parenthood, and global nonprofit organization Room to Read which addresses literacy and gender equality in education.
OTHER: Other Grantees have included Human Rights Watch and NPR, Media Matters for America.
LOOKING FORWARD: Expect the Grubers to stick with their select interest areas, with an eye toward progressive causes.
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