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Had a Willie Nelson concert at Bolado Park in 1988 been a greater financial success, the Community Foundation for San Benito County might never have come into existence. Instead, it was a blessing in disguise, inspiring the foundation’s creation in 1992 and enabling more than $31 million in grants to reach deserving organizations throughout the county.
“The one thing everyone at the foundation shares in common,” founding member Mary McCullough said, “is the phrase ‘for good, forever.’ We’re here, dedicated to serving the community for good and forever.”
By the time Sonny Paullus came up with the idea of staging the concert to raise money for a youth center, he had already left his mark on Hollister as one of the original investors in Ridgemark Country Club and Golf Course (which was built on the site of his former turkey farm) and the catalyst for San Benito Bank.
“Sonny put up his own money for that concert,” founding board member Fernando Gonzalez said. “Unfortunately, not enough people came, so his seed money for the center wasn’t there anymore.”
A group of like-minded people brainstormed the youth center with Paullus, only to be deterred by a study conducted by Man Dog Marketing on community centers which found they were not being used in ways that benefited the whole community. Paullus, who McCullough described as a “real far-out, creative thinker,” proposed the idea of a community foundation instead.
According to Gonzalez, the timing was ideal. The group had recently noticed that funds from the estates of two residents had been directed to foundations outside the county.
“That was what drove us,” he said, “because we didn’t have an organization that could take money in for whatever purposes and be able to fund things here.”
Former Community Foundation CEO Gary Byrne defined a community foundation as a “philanthropic organization that represents the community that you live in.”
“There are two aspects of it,” he said. “You’re there to support all the nonprofits that serve the community. And you’re there to support the donors and help them in their philanthropic giving.”
McCullough said that Paullus then gathered a group of “community busybodies” consisting of leaders and influencers who had demonstrated a commitment to helping the people and organizations in the county.
“He just had one of those really creative minds,” she said. “He said, ‘Yes, we can do it, then suggested we go see how somebody else is doing it, copy them, and then we can do it, too.’”
In March 1992, the Community Foundation for San Benito County was incorporated as a nonprofit with the following founding principles:
- To provide donors with a way of giving that fulfills their financial and charitable interests
- To build permanent funds to be used for the broad charitable needs of the community
- To maintain needed nonprofit service delivery in the community
The foundation had no paid staff. Initial funding was provided by the board of directors, who pledged $300 each in seed money, and by the Lucile Packard Foundation, which pledged $7,000. Paullus also donated $7,000 to cover expenses already incurred.
“When we first gathered,” McCullough said, “we had nothing. But that was not a big deal. We were mostly just trying to get organized, get some bylaws done, figure out the expenses and who we could get to donate.”
An anonymous annual $10,000 donation which came soon after the foundation was chartered proved the first breakthrough moment, according to Gonzalez. The funds were earmarked for donations to Jovenes de Antaño and the Community FoodBank of San Benito County, with a third cause chosen every year.
“It was the first major donation where we got to actually spend right away,” Gonzalez said. “The money was highlighted for who they wanted the money to go to, and we set up a grants committee to make recommendations.”
The second step forward, according to McCullough, was in 2000, when Bernie Furman joined the board.
“We didn’t do an awful lot in my estimation until we had Bernie,” she said. “He was always on the phone. He’d say, ‘You’ve given this much, but I think you could give a little more.’ And that’s how things built up. He was dedicated to the cause.”
By 2002, most of the original board members were still serving, and the foundation had given out more than $250,000 in donations to individuals and organizations. It was also the year that Furman invited Byrne to become the foundation’s first paid staff member.
At the time, Byrne was working for the Los Gatos-Saratoga High School District, helping oversee contracts relating to a $70 million renovation bond. He said he knew nothing about community foundations other than the fact that this one needed a new direction.
“In those days,” he said, “the foundation was really acting like a second United Way, They were giving money away to nonprofits in the social services. I was intrigued by the potential of how big an impact the Community Foundation could have.”
Byrne reached out to the Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Cruz Community Foundations, asking to learn how they functioned, “and from there, we started to grow.”
Early on, Byrne discovered that, because San Benito was a rural county with fewer than 100,000 residents, none of the larger foundations were willing to offer grants.
“We went to all of them,” he said. “They told me, ‘Gary, we don’t even know where San Benito is.’ That was very disheartening. We realized that we have to become self-sufficient ourselves and look out for donors in our own community.”
Byrne said he would pitch the cause to prospective donors to start giving to local nonprofits. saying, “Listen, you were born here, you were raised here, you raised your kids here, you went to school here, you went to college, then you started your business here.”
Byrne set up a series of committees and soon had 100 volunteers offering input about the direction the foundation should take. A series of 15 listening sessions and retreats from 2011 to 2012, using 50 trained volunteer leaders, further set funding priorities. Among the results were the creation of BenitoLink and the REACH Parks Foundation.
Byrne also oversaw the creation of funds—now numbering more than 150—representing various organizations and needs in the community, which serve as permanent savings accounts.
“A donor would say they loved the YMCA,” he said. “We’d build a fund for them, and the YMCA would get a portion every year. Once we started establishing those, we knew then that the foundation was always going to be there. And we just grew and grew.”
Byrne is particularly proud that the foundation has never had a fundraiser to cover operating expenses.
“We’ve never done a cheese-and-wine or what-have-you,” he said. “We have donors, board members and individuals who support us by a silent ask at Christmas time.”
Among the most substantial donations so far, from Randy and Rebecca Wolf, is also the most visible: $5.5 million to buy land and construct the Epicenter Building. It opened in March 2022, serving as the foundation’s headquarters and as office locations for many crucial public service organizations.
“The center was our fifth office,” Byrne said. “Before that, we were paying over $100,000 a year in rent in a space that was too small. We needed more space for us and the other nonprofits that needed to meet there. The donation was transformative.”
“Gary met with Randy and I,” Rebecca Wolf said, “and we knew that we needed to have a presence. We agreed that having a new building would be wonderful.”
The Wolfs visited the Santa Cruz and San Diego Community Center buildings and were impressed by them being open to the public.
“What’s nice about the Community Foundation,” Wolf said, “is that it is an umbrella for lots of nonprofits. We thought it would be terrific to house some of them and then we could open it up to the community to use.”
Wolf worked with an architect on the floor plan, outlining exactly what she wanted: downstairs offices for the foundation and upstairs offices for nonprofits, along with cubicles for smaller organizations, conference rooms, and a meeting room that opened to a patio for larger events.
“We went through two years of turmoil trying to get things approved,” she said, “and we looked at other places. But I thought, I’m going to stick it out. We did, and it finally came to fruition.”
All of the furnishings for the building were donated, meaning the foundation was able to move in with no mortgage and without spending any of its own funds.
“I think the building was just a beautiful outcome of the generosity of donors in seeing a need and fulfilling it,” Byrne said.
Byrne left the foundation in 2024. He said he thought his greatest accomplishment was to make “philanthropy kind of an easy thing to understand,” particularly in getting donors to give locally rather than appealing to larger institutions outside of the county.
He recounted a meeting with a man, who he didn’t identify, who wanted to donate $5 million toward nonprofits that served seniors within the county.
When asked why, the man told Byrne about a meeting he had at his intended target, Stanford Children’s Hospital, when he was informed that the donation would be appreciated but it would not be enough to name anything there in his honor.
“The light bulb went off in his head there and then,” Byrne said. “He realized that his gift was relatively insignificant to Stanford. He found out about the Community Foundation, came down and told me he was going to leave it local.”
After a four-month search, the Foundation recently announced the appointment of Cassandra Kartashovas as the organization’s new CEO.
A news release from the foundation states that Kartashovas “brings a wealth of knowledge and a deep commitment to community-led change, equity, and strategic collaboration.”
Byrne said she will be inheriting a foundation in great financial standing and a board of directors who he describes as “very active, credible, generous, and thoughtful.” But most of all, he said, she will be inheriting the culture of giving which he had tried to instill in the community.
“I was always thrilled to see donations small and large,” he said. “I’d be invited into people’s homes and hear them talk about giving back to their community while they’re living or when they die. It was a very privileged position to be in. Very privileged.”
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