About Us

Mission

The Campbell Foundation’s mission is to support nonprofits whose work creates equitable access to opportunity through education.

We consider education in broad terms, including a wide range of initiatives from early childhood and K-12 education, to alternative high school completion and workers’ rights education. These initiatives all work to amplify the voices and increase power and equitable outcomes for the youth and adults they serve.

Our Vision:

We envision a world of justice and opportunity, where every person can thrive.

Our Story:

As the Foundation has evolved over the years, we have sought to retain important values from our history. We are also committed to grow and change as we learn about needs and opportunities in our communities and best practices in the philanthropy sector.

The foundation was started by T.C. and Clara Campbell in 1979 in West Texas. They both came from families which valued service to the community, and they both had come of age in the Great Depression and had seen social suffering first hand. Their values and experiences deeply influenced T.C.’s and Clara’s lives and philanthropy. They saw their foundation as a means of public service and community support and instilled those values in their daughter and granddaughters.

As The Campbell Foundation has evolved, and as our families have grown, we have continued our commitment to funding in the communities in which we live. We now make grants in Austin, New Orleans, and the San Francisco Bay Area. We have continued to value a shared family mission of stewardship, but that stewardship is now centered on our shared concern for the inequities caused by racial injustice and unequal access to opportunity.

Guided by the principles and practice of Trust-Based Philanthropy, we seek to support nonprofits in ways that are respectful, relational, and transparent.