Brian Chesky pledges $100 million to San Francisco parks, the largest gift the city has received from a single donor

The Airbnb co-founder’s commitment will pay first for five projects in SoMa, the Mission, Bayview-Hunters Point, Potrero Hill and on the downtown waterfront, with the Board of Supervisors still to approve the money.

By Hollis Varga

Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb, has committed $100 million to San Francisco’s parks, a gift that Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office says is the largest the city has ever received from a single donor.

Mr. Lurie announced the pledge on Monday at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, after the San Francisco Chronicle first reported it. According to the mayor’s office, the first $39 million will go to five projects that the Recreation and Park Department already had planned but could not fully pay for. The remaining $61 million will go to projects the department identifies over the next year.

“San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and our parks are a big part of what makes it special,” Mr. Chesky said in a statement. “Since Mayor Lurie took office, we’ve talked about how we can make a meaningful difference for the people who live here. I’ve always believed in the power of bringing people together, and parks are where a city meets.”

The donor and the size of the gift

Mr. Chesky, 45, is worth about $13.1 billion, according to Forbes’s real-time estimate as of Tuesday, Nov. 10, most of it in Airbnb stock; Forbes says he owns nearly 11 percent of the company. On that estimate, the pledge equals a little under 1 percent of his net worth.

Airbnb’s announcement describes the money as “Brian’s personal contribution.” Neither the company nor the city said whether it will come directly from Mr. Chesky, through a private foundation or through a donor-advised fund, or whether the payments carry naming rights or other conditions. The Inquirer could not find any such terms in the public announcements. Mr. Chesky started Airbnb in San Francisco in 2007 with Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, and the company is still based in the city.

Where the first $39 million goes

The city listed five projects:

Rachele Sullivan Park, a half-acre lot the city already owns on 11th Street between Natoma and Minna Streets in western SoMa, would open in late 2028 instead of 2031, with a half basketball court, a fitness area, a children’s play area and shaded seating. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the area, called SoMa “among San Francisco’s most park-deprived neighborhoods.”

Garfield Square Park and Recreation Center in the Mission would add Sunday pool hours and resurface its playground, with work expected to start in mid-2027.

India Basin Waterfront Park in Bayview-Hunters Point, a 10-acre park now under construction, would get money to close a funding gap for a gravel beach, a boathouse, a playground and basketball courts, and to close a gap in the Bay Trail. The city expects it to open in 2028.

Jackson Playground in Potrero Hill would be fully renovated, with its historic clubhouse moved, restored and expanded. The city expects construction to begin in late 2027 and the park to reopen in 2029.

Embarcadero Plaza and Sue Bierman Park, across from the Ferry Building, would be joined into a single five-acre waterfront park. The city says that project will break ground in late 2026 and be completed in 2028; Airbnb’s announcement says it will be “ready in late 2027.”

The money will cover construction and five years of maintenance and programming, “allowing time for the city to identify ongoing funding streams,” the mayor’s office said. Airbnb says the five projects cover 24 acres and that more than one in 10 San Franciscans, including 20,000 children and seniors, will have an improved park within half a mile of home.

Sarah Madland, the Recreation and Park Department’s general manager, told KQED that the first installment could arrive as early as this year or early 2027. “These are projects that are ready to go and have broad community support, have plans in place, but we haven’t been able to put together that last piece of funding,” she said.

Who decides, and what comes next

The gift is not yet city money. Under the city’s announcement, the funding is “subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors and a recommendation by the Recreation and Park Commission,” and the second phase, the $61 million, will be allocated only after the department chooses projects. That review is the public checkpoint for the largest share of the gift, and the point at which supervisors and residents can weigh in on which neighborhoods benefit.

Supervisors who spoke for the city’s announcement welcomed the pledge. Supervisor Shamann Walton, whose District 10 includes India Basin and Jackson Playground, said residents “have been advocating for these investments for years.” Board President Rafael Mandelman called it a “generous gift.”

Mr. Lurie used the announcement to make a broader appeal to the city’s wealthiest residents. “To every leader who sees what Brian has done today: Our city is coming back, and you also have an opportunity not to watch from the sidelines but to be part of it,” he said. “We have seen an extraordinary creation of wealth and innovation in our city,” he added at the news conference, according to KQED, “and with that, comes enormous responsibility, opportunity, and obligation.”

A city that increasingly builds with private money

The pledge fits a pattern that has grown under Mr. Lurie, himself an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and the founder of the anti-poverty nonprofit Tipping Point: philanthropic money closing gaps in public projects. The Embarcadero park already has private partners. David Stiepleman, board chair of the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation, thanked Mr. Chesky and named Crankstart, the foundation of the venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman, along with the office landlord BXP and the Downtown SF Partnership, as partners on that project. The Chronicle noted that Presidio Tunnel Tops drew $98 million in private funding before it opened in 2022.

For context on the fortunes behind the city’s civic giving, see The Inquirer’s October survey of the 100 families who hold much of San Francisco’s wealth. By the city’s account, no single donor has given San Francisco’s government more than Mr. Chesky has now pledged.

Gifts on this scale can speed projects that might otherwise wait years for public funding. They also leave the city to pick up the cost once the five years of maintenance funding run out, which the mayor’s office acknowledged in saying it would need to identify “ongoing funding streams.”

The Inquirer asked Airbnb’s press office, the Recreation and Park Department, and the offices of Supervisors Dorsey and Walton on Monday about the gift’s structure, any conditions attached and the approval timeline. None had responded by publication.