SAN FRANCISCO—When the startup where Buck Gee served as CEO was acquired by Cisco in 2004, he suddenly found himself sitting on a fortune. But when Gee wanted to give back to the community, it proved harder than he thought.
“I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. I felt that I was lucky,” Gee said. “My goal was to help make other people lucky too.”
But the dazzling number of nonprofits for Chinese Americans made it hard for Gee, who comes from an immigrant family himself, to know which ones to donate to.
The Bay Area is home to some 385 foundations that have Chinese Americans at their helm. According to Gee, nonprofits are “generally very small and generally underfunded.”
Now Gee serves as the treasurer for the newly launched Chinese American Community Foundation. Launched on Feb. 28, the foundation is the first community foundation in the United States that focuses specifically on Chinese Americans.
“I look at it as a resource for newly emerging Chinese American donors who are looking for some place to give back. Making them more aware of the needs and the ways you can give back,” Gee said.
The Chinese American Community Foundation is the brainchild of Rolland Lowe, known in the Chinese community for his longstanding community work as a physician, and co-founder of the Asian American Health Forum.
Now at age 80, Lowe, who serves as chairman of the new foundation, says that he had been thinking about the foundation for 15 years.
