If they could talk, a number of endangered species — including red pandas from the Far East and a type of rare lemur from Madagascar — would no doubt thank their benefactor, who is making sure that they are comfortable and getting plenty to eat at their home, the San Francisco Zoo.
Their benefactor, Barry Lipman, co-founder of the law firm of Goldfarb and Lipman LLP and a board member emeritus of the San Francisco Zoological Society, has been wild about animals and the democratizing nature of the zoo for decades.
“Pretty much everyone of every demographic — race, religion, sexual orientation, you name it — goes to the zoo,” he said.
Animals are hardly Lipman’s only friends.
For at least 25 years, Lipman and his wife of 30-plus years, Marie, have been quietly but consistently making a philanthropic impact on myriad Bay Area cultural, educational, social welfare and Jewish institutions, and the thousands of people they serve.
In the Jewish arena, the Lipmans have long supported institutions such as the JCC of San Francisco and the Jewish Home in San Francisco.
Their generosity also has touched the lives of thousands of clients at the S.F.-based Homeless Prenatal Program, as well as hundreds of San Francisco public school students, who enjoy a dance program underwritten by Marie.
While the Lipmans have honorably served their San Francisco community for years, their reach also extends well beyond the Bay Area — to such a degree that it is now having global ripples. Since 2012, when they established the Barry and Marie Lipman Family Prize at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Lipmans have been looking to help organizations “motivated by social impact,” Barry Lipman said.
In its first four years, the annual prize awarded $125,000 to a winner and $12,500 to each of two runners-up, made possible by an $8 million gift from the Lipmans four years ago. This year, the Lipmans upped the value of the awards to $250,000 and $50,000, all in unrestricted funds.
In handing out the awards this year, Lipman, a 1970 Wharton graduate, said, “Our goal is to identify and promote game-changing ideas that solve social problems.” He said this year’s three finalists “rose to the top because of their innovative approaches and their potential for social impact. We are honored that we can support the important work of these social-change agents.”
In creating the Lipman Family Prize, he said he took as his model and inspiration the Bay Area-based Goldman Environmental Prize, a yearly award bestowed upon grassroot environmentalists from around the world. First awarded in 1990, the prize was established by the late San Francisco Jewish philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, and now is administered by their three children, John Goldman, Douglas Goldman and Susan Gelman.
This year’s Lipman Family Prize winner was the international nonprofit Soccer Without Borders, which creates customized soccer teams and support and educational services for youth from underserved communities in 10 countries on three continents.
Namati (a worldwide grassroots legal advocacy organization) and Hope-Enterprise Corporation (a community development organization supporting low- and moderate-income individuals and families in four Southern states) were the runners-up.
Over the past five years, hundreds of organizations worldwide have applied for the Lipman Family Prize, whose awardees, both winner and runners-up, receive the added benefit of executive training and support from Penn and its business school, Wharton.
Lipman said that his philanthropic inclinations harken back to his youth in Hollywood, Florida, and an impassioned High Holy Days sermon at Temple Sinai, the Conservative congregation his family attended.
Rabbi David Shapiro’s sermon made quite an impact on the 14-year-old co-valedictorian of his Hebrew school class. “It was the first time I felt it,” said Lipman, referring to the power of tzedakah.
The speech came during a Yizkor service only weeks after Lipman’s mother had died, and it made him want to immediately contribute all the money he had on him (about $10 or $12) to the synagogue. His father, however, prevailed upon him to save his money, and many years later, Lipman set up the Arlene Rosenthal Lipman scholarship in his mother’s memory at the Hamlin School, the San Francisco K-8 that his daughters attended.
Lipman said the feeling associated with giving back to the community is magical.
Many years ago, a fellow philanthropist said to him, “You will get more out of this [charitable giving] than you put in.”
“I didn’t understand it then,” Lipman said, “but a year later, I fully understood.”