Our story
David and Susan
David and Susan Martin married in 1985. David’s company, The Martin Group, went on to build homes for more than twenty thousand California families in sixty cities. Susan grew up in Alaska, Indonesia, Libya, Angola, and Scotland, and later worked in event planning.
From 2000 to 2008, David held international leadership roles at YPO (the Young Presidents’ Organization), including International Chairman, with Susan alongside him. Those years took them to more than seventy countries, and YPO’s membership doubled over the same stretch. Some of the foundation’s partners outside California trace back to people they met through YPO.
They raised three daughters, Kate, Megan, and Annabel, in Piedmont, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles, and moved to St. Helena after Annabel left for college. Megan passed away in 2015, and the loss deepened David and Susan’s commitment to families facing illness and grief.
David and Susan set up the foundation in 2006. Susan passed away in 2018 and David in 2021, both at home in St. Helena.
The foundation today
Kate and Annabel have led the foundation as co-presidents since 2021. Their husbands, Stephen and Justin, also serve on the board.
Grants go to organizations the family knows, or whose work they know firsthand. Most are in the Bay Area and Napa Valley, in four areas: health, faith and community, housing and hunger, and education.
The foundation’s assets are about $4.3 million at market value, and it gives about five percent of that each year. The partners, and the grants approved each year since 2016, are listed on What We Support.