To improve the quality of life of the Central San Joaquin Valley through philanthropy.

In 2007, the Fresno Regional Foundation granted nearly 4 million dollars to organizations working in our six counties of the Central Valley. In 2008, we've granted at the same level to organizations providing services to youth, the arts and culture, and human services. We also granted program with emphasis on air quality and the environment.

Forty years ago, in 1966, a trio of Fresno men gathered to talk about a community they loved and the things that defined the quality of life for its citizens including its government, the arts, education, civic groups and youth groups. What if, they said, we could create something that would outlast us all, perpetually supporting that which is good and right in our community? And what if, they speculated further, it benefited not only the organizations that received the funding but benefited the donors as well?
The idea for the Fresno Regional Foundation belonged to O. J. Woodward, a member of one of Fresno’s oldest, most influential and philanthropic families. He was helping settle a relative’s estate, a large portion of which had been given to the SPCA. Concerned that the agency would need help handling the funds, he accompanied the director of the SPCA to court where the bequest was approved. Following court, the director suggested they have lunch “on the dogs and cats.”
Woodward and his good friend Lewis S. Eaton, a member of another well-respected, philanthropic Fresno family, enlisted the help of Fresno lawyers Kendall, Manock and Newton Russell to help draw up the trust documents for what would become the Fresno Regional Foundation (FRF). The founders all saw a need for a foundation that would benefit a community, not just a cause, something that would be “as permanent as we could make it".