Day of Philanthropy 2019

Alvin (Al) grew up in Highland Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago), and moved to San Francisco in January 1958, following his discharge from the U.S. Army in Berlin. He already had his BA from Harvard College and his JD from Harvard Law School, and was hired by Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe, where he spent 5 years as a young associate lawyer. In 1963 he left the law practice (without regret) and went to UC Berkeley to obtain a master’s degree in City & Regional Planning. Upon graduating, he joined the newly-created SF Bay Conservation & Development Commission (BCDC) and in his 6½ years there became its deputy director and wrote the regulations that to this day protect the Bay. He left BCDC in 1972 and for the next 12 years he had a small private firm practicing city planning, in addition to serving 4 months as a Peace Corps trainer in Botswana and a having a sideline of real estate investment and renovation. In 1984 he returned again to UC Berkeley, this time to obtain a master’s degree in Social Welfare. With this degree, Al became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and built a private practice of psychotherapy. He closed his practice in his late 70’s and has since enjoyed a busy retirement.

Along with his careers, Al has been active in civic and charitable activities, including: member of the San Francisco Planning Commission, 1962-64; Treasurer and Director, ACLU of Northern California, 1976-82; Founding Board Member of New Israel Fund, 1979-83; Director, Jewish Family & Children's Service of San Francisco, 1984-90; and Director, Lambda Legal 1994-2000. Al was a director of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund from 1995-2010, and also served as a member of the Executive Committee, Chair of the Human Resources Committee, and founding Chair of the LGBT Alliance. In addition, Al served as Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and a member of its Executive Committee, 1996-2006, and founding Board member of the Access Institute for Psychological Services, 2002-04.

Prior to the Robert Sinton Award, other organizations have recognized Al’s contributions: the Silver SPUR Award (1996) --appropriate since he had coined the acronym SPUR (the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association) in 1960 when the unwieldy former name was changed; the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s Community Service Award (2006); the Human Rights Campaign’s James C. Hormel Community Service Award (1996) and its Charles M. Holmes Award (2006); and the Adelman-Gurevitch Founders Award given by Open House (2012) . In addition, Al was the Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade in 2013.

In May 2004, in connection with moving from the Green Street house where he had lived for 40 years, Al met Robert Holgate, an interior designer, and after six months they formed a relationship that has endured and grown in the fifteen years since. They were legally married on their tenth anniversary in 2014, and still do the worldwide traveling that they enjoy. Robert has begun to replicate Al’s roles in the community and is the first non-Jewish member of the Board of Keshet. Together they are the guardians of Buddy Holgate-Baum, an 11-year-old dachshund-terrier mix.