David Friedman honored with the Robert Sinton Award for Distinguished Leadership
Each year, the Federation honors a distinguished community member with the Robert Sinton Award for Distinguished Leadership. In honor of Robert Sinton, a businessman and community leader whose dedication to the Federation and other Bay Area organizations spanned more than five decades, this leadership award embodies his passion for Jewish communal volunteerism and includes a financial stipend to a Jewish organization chosen by the recipient.
When selecting the recipient of this year’s prestigious Sinton Award, we were drawn to David Friedman. As someone who epitomizes his family’s powerful legacy of civic responsibility, David lives, on a daily basis, the Jewish values of community and tikkun olam – and reflects the very nature of the Award by giving generously of his own time, vision, and philanthropy.
David has been actively involved with the Jewish Home of San Francisco (serving on the board for 20 years and as its chair), the UC Berkeley Foundation, the Friedman Family Foundation, Faultline Foundation, Build Change, the San Francisco Foundation, and San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), where he is the current chair of the board. He has ably served on the Federation’s boards or directors and governors, endowment committee, and capital planning and building committees. And David's insight, technical knowledge, and extensive experience with major real estate development have provided invaluable expertise to the Federation's nonprofit partners – on projects totaling over a billion dollars.
When asked about David, one member of our award committee said, “David is a very solid, low key, intelligent thinker.“ He does what he does consistently with both passion and humility. With a deep commitment to his volunteer work and to his large structural and earthquake engineering practice, David is always on the go.
We are inspired by David’s commitment to making the world a better place, and congratulate him on this honor. We look forward to celebrating with David and his family at the Day of Philanthropy on September 22.
