SOURCE OF WEALTH: Wing, Accel Partners
FUNDING AREAS: Education & Youth, Bay Area Community, Global, Religious
OVERVIEW: Peter and Amy Wagner and their family conduct their philanthropy through the Wagner Family Foundation, which according to available tax filings, awarded $318,000 in grants in 2017. Wagner steadily supports his alma mater Harvard. Global causes are another area of interest.
BACKGROUND: James Peter Wagner holds an AB in physics from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Wagner began his career as a physicist in nuclear fusion research and aerospace. He went on to McKinsey and Company and was a line manager at Silicon Graphics. Wagner helped lead Accel Partners for 15 years as managing director and eventually founded Wing Venture Capital, leading investments in dozens of early-stage companies.
ISSUES:
EDUCATION & YOUTH: Wagner steadily supports his alma mater Harvard University, including its business school and sailing program. Wagner races in the San Francisco Bay on his sailboat, “Nantucket Sleigh Ride.” The couple also supports an engineering and applied professorship in their name at Harvard.
Other grantees include Menlo School, Peninsula Bridge, which “transforms the lives of highly motivated, low-income students for success in college preparatory high school programs and four-year colleges,” and Riekes Center.
BAY AREA COMMUNITY: Grantees include Able Works, which “equips individuals with financial education, life skills and assets that enable one to live free from oppression and poverty” and The Battery Foundation, which supports The Battery, a private establishment aimed at the “nurture & embrace of forward-thinking minds in the arts, technology & other thriving industries & passions.”
GLOBAL: The couple has supported Nuru International (Wagner serves on the board), World Vision International, and International Justice Mission.
RELIGIOUS: Grantees include Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and Vineyard Assembly of God Church.
LOOKING FORWARD: Expect the Wagners to stick with their select interest areas for now.
CONTACT:
Wagner Family Foundation
314 Lytton Ave., Ste. 200
Palo Alto, CA 94301
