GLIDE Foundation

Background

The GLIDE Foundation is a left-of-center group located in San Francisco’s poverty-stricken Tenderloin district. It focuses on supporting and advocating for left-of-center issues including poverty, housing and homelessness, and racial and social justice. ¹

San Francisco philanthropist Lizzie Glide established the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in 1929. In 1963, liberal minister Cecil Williams and his wife Janice Mirikitani joined the church. They expanded its services to include free meals, childcare, women’s support, a legal clinic, and a walk-in center for those in need. It opened its doors to “hippies, prostitutes, chronic drug users, transgender youth, and other poor and the marginalized people of the Tenderloin.” Williams was known for his support of LGBT people and civil rights. He was a prolific fundraiser and connected to major donors including Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet, and former President Bill Clinton. Williams passed away in April 2024. ^{2  4  3}

Services

The GLIDE Foundation offers services to people suffering from poverty, homelessness, addiction, and legal challenges, and it advocates for left-of-center policies that address “poverty, food insecurity, housing, discrimination, racial justice and human rights.” ^{5  6  7}

Its Daily Free Meals program is GLIDE’s largest program. It provides three free meals a day to those in need and is partially funded by the San Francisco Department of Disability and Aging Services. ⁸

Its Welcome Center offers assistance in finding shelter and provides hygiene kits, clothing, and blankets. ⁹ GLIDE offers programs that support homeless youth, women surviving trauma, and families in need. ⁵

The GLIDE Journey Home program is a case management program that provides support to the homeless and relocation services to reunite with family or friends outside of San Francisco. It partners with the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. ¹⁰

GLIDE partners with the Justice and Diversity Center of the San Francisco Bar Association to offer a free legal clinic for low-income people. It provides volunteer lawyers to address family law, housing law, and immigration law for the undocumented. It has a Clean Slate Clinic to address legal issues through the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office including petitions to dismiss convictions or terminate probation, reducing felonies to misdemeanors, and sealing arrest records. ¹¹

Its GLIDE Memorial Church hosts services every Sunday and hosts groups focused on harm reduction meditation, LGBT support, and racial activism which “seeks liberation for the oppressed and marginalized.” ¹² The San Francisco Examiner describes the church as “a locus of progressive activism and ministry, particularly for the Tenderloin neighborhood’s LGBTQ, Black and Asian American communities.” ¹³

The GLIDE Foundation’s Center for Social Justice provides community education, organizing, and policy development and advocacy for its four issue areas: homelessness and housing, community health, racial justice and reconciliation, and women and families of color. ^{7  14}

Funding

From 2000 through 2022, investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet has auctioned an annual lunch to raise money for the GLIDE Foundation. These lunches have raised approximately $53.2 million for the foundation. He stopped the auctions after the 2022 auction which resulted in the highest winning bid of $19 million. ^{15  16}

In 2024, the fundraising auction was for a private lunch with Salesforce.com founder, chairman, and co-CEO Marc Benioff, replacing Warren Buffet. It raised $1.5 million. ¹⁷

In 2026, Buffett auctioned a lunch again, along with Golden State Warriors basketball player Stephen Curry and his wife Ayesha. The winning bid was $9,000,100 which will be split between the two foundations. In addition, Buffett committed to matching the winning bid for both Glide and the Currys’ Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, bringing the total contribution to over $27 million. ^{18  17  16}

Leadership

As of 2026, Gina Fromer was the president and CEO of the GLIDE Foundation. She joined GLIDE in 2023 to lead the organization. She was previously the president and CEO of the Children’s Council of San Francisco which connects families with affordable childcare, trains early educators, and advocates for early education policies. Fromer earned a Ph.D. in organizational development and leadership from the University of Arizona. She was a youth counselor for Young Community Developers the joined the YMCA where she had several leadership positions in the San Franciso area. She was the California state director for the Trust for Public Land and served as CEO of the nonprofit San Francisco Education Fund. ^{19  20  21}

Controversies

In 2018, the United Methodist California-Nevada Conference and Bishop Minerva Carcano filed a lawsuit against the GLIDE Foundation for control of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church. Carcano and the UMC claimed that the Methodist pastors assigned to the church were unable to exercise their responsibilities appropriately, since Williams and his wife made all of the decisions. They stated that most of Glide Memorial’s attendees were non-Christians or agnostics and that services did not follow the “fundamentals of Christian worship.” The lawsuit ended in a settlement in which GLIDE retained its church building and left the United Methodist denomination. The United Methodist California-Nevada Conference retained control of the $4.5 million trust originally set up by founder Lizzie Glide and received an extra $1.5 million from the GLIDE Foundation. ^{22  23}