Advisory Board

We are lucky to count on a broad network of amazing friends and advisors. This trusted and experienced board of advisors has been kind enough to offer up their time and talent to help guide our work. As a small organization, we rely on the expertise and ideas of others, and this group of individuals play a particularly vital role, informing the direction and strategy of the Foundation.

Bill Somerville is the President and Founder of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation. He brings 48 years of experience in non-profit work, including 17 years as Executive Director of the Peninsula Community Foundation.

Bill is nationally recognized as an expert on creative grantmaking. He has consulted at over 400 community foundations in the United States, Canada and abroad on effective operations and grantmaking. Bill publishes the periodical Building Community Foundations, distributed to 950 community foundations worldwide. He currently teaches courses on philanthropy at Stanford University, UC Berkeley’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and Laney Community College, in Oakland, CA.

Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker, by Bill Somerville with Fred Setterberg, published in February 2008 by Heyday Press, is a guide to decisive, hands-on grantmaking, to energize and motivate individual donors, foundation grantmakers, and nonprofit leaders alike.

Bill is a recipient of the 2004 Gerbode Fellowship Award in recognition of outstanding achievement as a non-profit executive. He is a member of the National Advisory Board, Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford University, and the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare Advisory Board.