More than just personal giving, Clint Reilly Philanthropies includes corporate giving and in-kind donations, charitable contributions from the Reilly Family Foundation and the direct administration of Bay Scholars, the scholarship program founded and helmed by Clint Reilly.
With extremely limited financial means at home, Clint relied on the generosity of others to attend high school and college at St. Joseph’s High School in Mountain View and at St. Patrick’s College in Menlo Park. His classical education provided the intellectual foundation for a successful and varied career, a fact that Reilly has never taken for granted.
Predicated upon the belief that the greatest act of charity is to help create a just society, Clint’s life’s work—as a seminarian, as a political consultant, as a business person—has never strayed from the values instilled in him by his parents and educators.
In 1994, Clint managed—on a volunteer basis—the campaign to pass a $52 million bond issue for the new Asian Art Museum at San Francisco’s Civic Center. Additionally, he and his wife, Janet, were major donors to the museum’s $160 million capital campaign.
As a member of the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities from 1997-2006 and its first lay board president from 2002-2006, Clint and Janet founded the Archbishop’s Loaves and Fishes Dinner as part of a fundraising initiative that erased a multi-million-dollar operating deficit and put the social services arm of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco on solid financial footing. Catholic Charities, whose door is open to all, operates approximately 30 programs serving 40,000 people in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties.
In 2007, Clint founded Bay Scholars, then called the Clint Reilly Scholarship Program. Today, Bay Scholars provides annual $2,500 grants to help cover tuition costs for inner-city youth attending 12 Catholic secondary schools throughout the Bay Area: Immaculate Conception Academy, Mercy High School, Riordan High School, Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, Bishop O’Dowd, Junipero Serra High School, St. Joseph Notre Dame High School, Saint Mary’s College High School, Salesian College Preparatory, Saint Francis, Mercy High School (San Mateo) and Moreau Catholic High School. To date, Bay Scholars has awarded more than $3 million in scholarships to 546 scholars.
Giving through direct involvement is something of a family creed. While Clint’s work with Bay Scholars strives to provide educational opportunities to students in need, Janet Reilly has been equally busy on behalf of the working uninsured in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Co-founded and led by Janet Reilly, Clinic by the Bay is a free, volunteer-powered health clinic that helps to meet the primary medical needs of the working uninsured in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Established in 2010 as an affiliate of Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) clinic, Clinic by the Bay is 100 percent privately funded and does not rely on government funding. Clinic by the Bay is located in the Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood, a medically underserved area with few health and social services.
Bay Scholars provides recipients with a four-year, $10,000 scholarship to attend one of 14 partner schools. In addition, the program provides mentorship, college application support, networking opportunities and programming to help expose participating scholars to local colleges and programs of interest.
To date, Bay Scholars has disbursed more than $4.1 million in scholarships to 685 students, all of whom have been able to access a life-altering education that in most cases would have otherwise been out of reach for them and their families. Bay Scholars gets results; with a 100% college matriculation rate, Bay Scholars alumni attend private, public, large and small colleges and universities where they will continue their educational journey.
Clint and Janet Reilly place philanthropy at the heart of their marriage. Read the full story from the San Francisco Business Times.
Heavily focused in the areas of their respective personal interests—education for Clint and health care for Janet—the Reillys’ giving is centered on expanding opportunities for Bay Area youth and families to reach their full potential.
Major individual gifts from the Reillys to the SFMOMA, Lick Wilmerding High School, Catholic Charities CYO, the Presidio Tunnel Tops project, and the Asian Art Museum amount to millions of dollars. They have also donated hundreds of thousands collectively to other organizations such as San Domenico School, Schools of the Sacred Heart and the Lasallian Education Fund, and their own nonprofit pursuits, Bay Scholars and Clinic by the Bay.