Mary Miner is a California-based donor and funder of many left-of-center organizations and political candidates. She is the widow of the late Oracle co-founder Robert Miner, who died of cancer in 1994.

She and her family founded the Baker Street Foundation, a left-of-center foundation based in San Francisco that makes a number of grants to parks, arts, education, and relief organizations as well as several left-of-center organizations including Planned Parenthood, Earthjustice, Safe and Sound, and National Organization for Women. She also has made many personal contributions to Democratic candidates and Political Action Committees (PACs). Miner also founded Oakville Ranch Vineyards, a winery in Napa Valley, California. ^{1 2 3}

Background

Mary Miner is the widow of Robert Miner, a co-founder of Oracle. Robert died of cancer in 1994. She and her husband had three children, Nicola, Justine, and Luke. Following Robert Miner’s death, he left his Oracle shares, then valued at approximately $600 million, to Mary and their three children. Mary Miner founded the Baker Street Foundation shortly after her husband’s death and has been the president of the foundation since the organization’s founding. She also started a Napa Valley winery called Oakville Ranch Vineyards. ⁴

The Miner family was ranked number 170 on the Forbes “Richest American Families” list in 2014 with an estimated wealth of $1.1 billion but fell from the list in later years. ⁵

The couple’s oldest daughter Nicola Miner is also a left-of-center donor, a Baker Street Foundation board member, and funder of many left-of-center organizations along with her husband, author Robert Mailer Anderson, with whom she founded the Miner Anderson Family Foundation in 2009. ^{6 7}

Grantmaking

Mary Miner is the president of the Baker Street Foundation, which held assets with a fair market value of $111,419,700 at the end of 2021. The entirety of the foundation’s funding comes from the Miner family and returns on investment assets contributed by the Miners. ⁸

The foundation has given grants to left-of-center groups including Earthjustice, Safe and Sound, National Organization for Women (NOW), the University of San Francisco School of Law – Immigration Clinic, and Planned Parenthood. The organization distributed over $8.5 million in 2021 to groups including CalMatters, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the City and County of San Francisco government. The foundation gave gifts of over $1 million to the San Francisco Ballet and the San Francisco Parks Alliance in 2021. ⁹

Political Contributions

Mary Miner has donated to many Democratic candidates for public office, often donating up to the federal maximum contribution limit per campaign. Her campaign contributions include gifts made to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Campaign, Joe Biden’s 2020 Presidential Campaign, Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign, the Democratic National Committee, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Kamala Harris’s 2020 Presidential Campaign, and state Democratic Party committees in over a dozen states. ¹⁰

1. “Miner Family.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 2014. https://www.forbes.com/profile/miner/?sh=2845da591e31
2. “IRS Form 990.” Baker Street Foundation. 2015. Accessed July 6, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/943192365/2017_04_PF%2F94-3192365_990PF_201512
3. “IRS Form 990.” Baker Street Foundation. 2021. Accessed July 6, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943192365/202243199349109904/full
4. “Miner Family.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 2014. https://www.forbes.com/profile/miner/?sh=2845da591e31
5. “Miner Family.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 2014. https://www.forbes.com/profile/miner/?sh=2845da591e31
6. “Miner Family.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 2014. https://www.forbes.com/profile/miner/?sh=2845da591e31
7. “About.” Miner Anderson Family Foundation. Accessed November 12, 2019. https://www.minerandersonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us
8. “IRS Form 990.” Baker Street Foundation. 2021. Accessed July 6, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943192365/202243199349109904/full
9. “IRS Form 990.” Baker Street Foundation. 2021. Accessed July 6, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943192365/202243199349109904/full
10. “Individual Donor Search: Mary Miner.” Open Secrets. Accessed July 6, 2023. https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=mary+miner&cycle=&state=CA&zip=&employ=&occupation=&jurisdiction=&cand=&type=