[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 132 (Friday, August 2, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1023-E1024]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING BILL SOMERVILLE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 2, 2019

  Ms. ESHOO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the work of Bill 
Somerville, an extraordinary philanthropist, grant-maker, advisor, and 
a generous, creative, and devoted advocate for those in need.
  Bill Somerville grew up in Berkeley, California, and later attended 
the University of California. He served for 17 years as Executive 
Director of the pioneering and highly regarded Peninsula Community 
Foundation and is a nationally recognized expert on creative grant-
making, having advised more than 400 community foundations in the 
United States, Canada, and abroad on effective operations and 
grantmaking. He has taught courses on

[[Page E1024]]

philanthropy at Stanford University, UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong 
Learning Institute, and Laney Community College, in Oakland, 
California. Bill was honored with the 2004 Gerbode Fellowship Award in 
recognition of outstanding achievement as a nonprofit executive and is 
a founding member of the National Advisory Board of the Haas Center for 
Public Service at Stanford University. He has also been an advisor to 
the Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare and serves as an 
advisor to the Peery Family Foundation and the Junior League of Palo 
Alto.
  Bill is the author, with Fred Setterberg, of Grassroots Philanthropy: 
Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker, a guide to creative grantmaking. 
In it, according to the Financial Times, May 2008, ``Somerville 
describes in engaging prose how to be an effective philanthropist. With 
no agenda other than his need to set things right in the world, he lays 
out a series of principles that can be adopted by both endowed national 
foundations and those with lesser means, providing they have an urge to 
use their wealth to improve the world.''
  Bill Somerville's career as a maverick grant-maker spans 50 years in 
nonprofit work. In 1990, he founded Philanthropic Ventures Foundation 
(PVF) which specializes in creative giving programs customized to 
donors' interests. Under his stewardship, PVF has distinguished itself 
as a leader in ``venture philanthropy,'' a term coined by Somerville to 
describe PVF's quick-response, high-impact grant mode, including 
immediate response grants and paperless giving.
  Larry Purcell, the highly respected founder of the Catholic Worker 
House in Redwood City, California, reports that more than 40 years ago 
he and Bill Somerville became teamsters for the poor by picking up free 
fresh produce from the South San Francisco Produce Terminal. The 
Catholic Worker House has continued to distribute thousands of pounds 
of produce each week, using three 15,000-pound trucks acquired through 
Bill Somerville's generosity and that of Philanthropic Ventures. A 
decade ago, Bill Somerville and Philanthropic Ventures Foundation gave 
the Catholic Worker House seed money to purchase a two-bedroom house in 
Redwood City for day laborers. In 2018 Bill Somerville and 
Philanthropic Ventures Foundation provided seed money for Catholic 
Workers to buy a home in Oakland to house men coming out of San Quentin 
State Prison. Meanwhile, Catholic Workers in Redwood City, San Bruno, 
San Jose, and Santa Maria, California, have been feeding, clothing, 
sheltering, and educating the very poor by the thousands. Bill 
Somerville and Philanthropic Ventures Foundation have supported each of 
those Catholic Worker Houses in magnificent ways. According to Purcell, 
Bill Somerville is great, humble, dedicated, and serves the poor with 
deep, deep kindness.
  In Grassroots Philanthropy Bill said ``Philanthropy is a fascinating 
pursuit. It's the stuff of dreams made practical, a lever that can move 
the world. Philanthropy is a subject about which I remain unequivocally 
and unapologetically passionate.''
  Madam Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me 
in honoring the extraordinary work of an extraordinary man, Bill 
Somerville, and thanking him for his unique leadership. He has 
strengthened our communities and bettered our nation through his 
vision, passion, and integrity, and he stands as a role model of what a 
citizen can do to create transformative change in the lives of so many.

                          ____________________