Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego

Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego

Founded in 1967, the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego operates as the region's central philanthropic endowment platform, managing charitable assets for individual families, community organizations, and legacy donors. President and CEO Jeremy Pearl has led the foundation for more than 20 years, during which time it has developed a substantial donor-advised fund program alongside a suite of planned giving and endowment vehicles. The foundation shares a physical campus at the Joseph and Lenka Finci Jewish Community Building with its close partner, the Jewish Federation of San Diego. The foundation allocates across buyout strategies, growth equity, and a fund-of-funds portfolio that spans private credit, hedge funds, and secondaries. JCF also runs a distinct Charitable Real Estate Fund that acquires and holds mixed-use and residential properties, including a Valley Center residential parcel at 27427 Cool Water Ranch Road, as a long-term asset on its balance sheet. Key San Diego–based co-investors and philanthropic collaborators include the Leichtag Foundation and major donors Joan and Irwin Jacobs, both of whom move significant capital through JCF's donor-advised fund platform. While the foundation's grantmaking concentrates on Jewish communal life in San Diego, Israel, and nationally, its investment strategies carry a broader geographic mandate. The foundation reported approximately $813 million in total assets under management (Altss estimate). It operates a Vehicle Donation Program as an additional asset-acceptance channel and holds professional network memberships in the Jewish Funders Network and Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties. Adjacent entities housed within JCF's administrative umbrella include the Jewish Women's Foundation of San Diego, The Beth El Endowment Foundation, The Chortek Family Foundation, and The Polis Schutz Family Foundation — each a named endowment governed with separate grantmaking priorities but sharing the foundation's investment and operational infrastructure. JCF's structural differentiator is a two-layer model rarely seen in community foundations: it serves both as a traditional grantmaking sponsor with multiple embedded named endowments and as a direct institutional allocator with an in-house real estate fund, blurring the line between passive philanthropic warehouse and active, balance-sheet-conscious investing. This architecture lets donor advisers tap pooled institutional access — fund-of-funds positions, private credit, real assets — without each family having to build a stand-alone office.