The Skyline Foundation, formerly known as the Yellow Chair Foundation, is a private foundation that is the philanthropic vehicle for Yahoo co-founder David Filo and his wife Angela. ^{1  2} It primarily funds left-of-center organizations with a focus on environmental issues, education, journalism, and elections.  ³ It also funds efforts to promote midwifery, including training programs for midwives and the construction of midwife-focused birthing centers. ³

Organization

The Skyline Foundation was founded in 2001 as the Yellow Chair Foundation by multi-billionaire David Filo and his wife Angela.  ^{4  5} Filo is a co-founder and former CEO of the website Yahoo, which went public in 1996 and sold its core services to Verizon for $4.48 billion in 2016. ^{4  5}

Angela Filo is active in left-of-center philanthropy and activism, especially in areas related to education and journalism, which is her professional background as a former high school journalism teacher.  ⁶ She was the co-chair of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) national Centennial Campaign, is a trustee of Stanford University, and an advisory member of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she received her master’s degree in journalism.  ⁶

The foundation was created in 2001, and for the first two decades of its existence it operated with minimal overhead with David and Angela Filo as its only directors and no paid staff members. Its operations were managed by Pacific Foundation Services (PFS), a provider of outsourced foundation management services. In 2022, Skyline paid PFS $1,270,650 for management services.  ²

In 2015, an article in Inside Philanthropy described the foundation as “a case study in non-transparency.” ⁷

2023 Growth

The Filos dramatically increased their foundation’s size and scope between 2022 and 2023, and they renamed it from the “Yellow Chair Foundation” to the “Skyline Foundation,” launched a website, added professional staff members for the first time, and expanded its areas of policy focus.  ^{8  2  9}

It went from no employees in 2022 to five in 2023, growing to 13 as of November 2025. ^{1  2}

The foundation’s executive director as of 2025 was Angie Chen, the former program director at the left-of-center Libra Foundation founded by billionaire Hyatt hotel chain heir and technology investor Nicholas Pritzker and his wife Susan. ¹⁰

In her biography on the Skyline Foundation website, Chen is described as “grateful to work toward redistributing wealth to create a more just future.” ¹¹ In the foundation’s 2023 annual report to the IRS, Chen was reported as having received $302,983 in total compensation for an average of 37.5 hours of work per week.

In 2025, the foundation partnered with the Trust Based Philanthropy Project through its “Meet the Moment” initiative. This initiative seeks to bring its supporters together “in solidarity with nonprofits.” The groups claim that the political climate under the second Trump administration could pose risks to nonprofits through reductions in funding, legal concerns, and lack of staff. ¹²

Grantmaking

As the Skyline Foundation’s assets have grown, its grantmaking has grown as well. In 2013, for instance, the foundation made 54 grants totaling $9,128,530. By 2023, that had grown to 151 grants totaling $65,046,683.  ²

According to a 2024 Inside Philanthropy profile, roughly 90 percent of the foundation’s grants in 2023 were in the form of multi-year, unrestricted general support for the recipient organizations. ⁸

The foundation frequently makes grants through high-profile left-of-center “pass-through” funders such as Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, Groundswell Fund, New Venture Fund, Tides Foundation, and Windward Fund.  ²

Environmental Advocacy

The Skyline Foundation’s original and largest policy focus is supporting left-of-center environmental organizations. It was a major funder of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign to shut down every coal-fired power plant in the United States alongside former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies. ¹³

The program lead for the foundation’s environmental grants is Shereen D’Souza, who was previously deputy secretary for climate policy and intergovernmental relations for the California Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of Governor Gavin Newsom (D). ¹⁴

In 2025, D’Souza was a participant in a program organized by the organization Green 2.0, which advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within environmental organizations.  ¹⁵ During the event, left-of-center grantmakers highlighted their desire to see DEI principles take root in environmental organizations, and their willingness to make that part of their funding decisions. ¹⁶

Environmental organizations funded by the Skyline Foundation include 350.org, California Environmental Justice Alliance, Center for Carbon Removal (now Carbon180), Clean Air Task Force, Climateworks Foundation, Earthjustice, Elevate Energy, Energy Peace Partners, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Protection Network, Environmental Working Group, Global Greengrants Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, PSE Healthy Energy, Sierra Club Foundation, United Nations Foundation, and United States Energy Foundation.  ²

Journalism

The Skyline Foundation is a major donor to journalism-education programs, nonprofit newsrooms, and other journalism-related nonprofits thanks to Angela Filo, who was a high school journalism teacher and received her master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. ⁶

The foundation is a major supporter of the left-of-center investigative journalism organization ProPublica, and Angela Filo was a member of ProPublica’s board of directors as of 2025.  ^{6  2} The foundation’s support of ProPublica grew significantly in the early 2020s, doubling from $500,000 to $1 million between 2021 and 2022, then quadrupling to $4 million in 2023.  ²

Other journalism-related organizations funded by the foundation include 19^th News, American Journalism Project, Capital B News, Documented, Global Press Institute, Muckrock, Outlier Media, Prison Journalism Project, Rebuild Local News, and Student Press Law Center.  ²

Education

The Skyline Foundation gives to a variety of education-related organizations, both funding schools directly as well as organizations that promote a broadly left-of-center, government schools-centered model for public education.

In 2023, the Skyline Foundation gave $1.5 million to the Resource Equity Funders Collaborative project to promote increased government spending on public education sponsored by the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation.  ²

It supports universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of British Columbia, Yale University, Michigan State University, and the University of Pennsylvania.  ²

Other education grant recipients have included Center for Black Educator Development, College Track, Education Law Center, Education Trust, Latinos for Education, The Leadership Academy, Leading Educators, Learning Policy Institute, MEB Alliance for Educator Diversity, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Center for Teacher Residencies, and National Public Education Support Fund.  ²

Health Care

The Skyline Foundation’s health care-related giving is focused heavily on the promotion of midwifery as an alternative model for birth care. ³

In addition to multiple grants to midwife training organizations, birthing centers, and other pro-midwifery groups and researchers, the foundation has given grants to health care-related organizations such as Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Elephant Circle, Institute for Medicaid Innovation, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, Public Health Foundation, and Purchaser Business Group on Health.  ²

Elections, Criminal Justice, and Other Policy Areas

The Skyline Foundation makes a number of grants concerning what it refers to as “Just Democracy” topics such as criminal justice reform, voter access, economic policy, and other areas. ³

The foundation’s program lead for these areas as of 2025 was Jenny Montoya, a former senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama administration and a regional field director for the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Prior to joining the foundation, Montoya held leadership positions promoting left-of-center criminal justice policy reforms at Code for America and the Public Rights Project. ¹⁷

Grant recipients include Alliance for Safety and Justice, American Civil Liberties Union, California Budget and Policy Center, Californians for Justice Education Fund, Center for Technology and Civic Life, Chicago Votes, Economic Security Project, Forward Justice, Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Givedirectly, Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, North Carolina Justice Center, The Praxis Project, Public Rights Project, Resist Inc., The Sentencing Project, and Shared Ascent Fund.  ²

Financials

As of 2023, the Skyline Foundation reported $972,471,957 in net assets. ² This represented significant growth from previous years, as its assets had totaled roughly $620 million in 2020, $424 million in 2019, and $299 million in 2018.  ² This growth was driven entirely by contributions from David and Angela Filo and investment returns on the foundation’s endowment.  ²

The foundation uses environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles to manage its endowment investment strategy, with a growing percentage of its assets invested in funds and companies “aligned with the foundation’s values and programs.” ¹

1. “About.” Skyline Foundation. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://skylinefoundation.org/about/.
2. “Skyline Foundation.” ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943380194.
3. “Programs.” Skyline Foundation. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://skylinefoundation.org/programs/.
4. “David Filo – Yahoo!” Forbes. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/profile/david-filo/.
5. Aguilar, Rose. “Yahoo IPO Closes at $33 after $43 Peak.” CNET News.com (via Wayback Machine), April 12, 1996. https://web.archive.org/web/20080821151527/http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-209413.html.
6. “Angela Filo.” ProPublica. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://www.propublica.org/people/angela-filo.
7. Suchecki, Paul M.J. “A Billionaire Co-Founder of Yahoo and His Wife Quietly Help Fund the ‘War on Coal.’” Inside Philanthropy. July 13, 2015. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/7/13/a-billionaire-co-founder-of-yahoo-and-his-wife-quietly-help.html.
8. Scutari, Mike. “Trust-Based Practices Top of Mind at Tech Billionaire Couple David and Angela Filo’s Foundation.” Inside Philanthropy, August 5, 2024. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2024-8-5-trust-based-practices-top-of-mind-at-tech-billionaire-couple-david-and-angela-filos-foundation.
9. Filo, Angela, and David Filo. “Name Change.” Skyline Foundation, June 5, 2023. https://skylinefoundation.org/namechange/.
10. “Nicholas Pritzker.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/profile/nicholas-pritzker/#49ab533d59d6.
11. “Angie Chen.” Skyline Foundation. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://skylinefoundation.org/about/angie-chen/.
12. “Meet the Moment – Trust-Based Philanthropy.” Trust Based Philanthropy . Accessed September 29, 2025. https://www.trustbasedphilanthropy.org/meet-the-moment#signatories.
13. Suchecki, Paul M.J. “A Billionaire Co-Founder of Yahoo and His Wife Quietly Help Fund the ‘War on Coal.’” Inside Philanthropy. Inside Philanthropy, July 13, 2015. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/7/13/a-billionaire-co-founder-of-yahoo-and-his-wife-quietly-help.html.
14. “Shereen D’Souza.” Skyline Foundation. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://skylinefoundation.org/about/shereen-dsouza/.
15. “Green 2.0 (green diversity initiative)” Devex. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://www.devex.com/organizations/green-2-0-green-diversity-initiative-138431
16. “Philanthropy for All: Building Effective Environmental Grantmaking Practices.” Green 2.0, July 24, 2025. https://greentwopointzero.org/philanthropy-for-all-building-effective-environmental-grantmaking-practices-event/.
17. Tansey, Jenny Montoya. “Jenny Montoya Tansey.” LinkedIn. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-montoya-tansey-95468343.