Harvey Bottelsen

It all started on a tennis court.

Jim was a Dad, looking for someone to teach tennis to his kids.  Harvey was a tennis pro looking for someone to teach.

That encounter blossomed into a lifelong friendship based on respect and mutual admiration. As Jim grew older, he asked Harvey to take care of many things, including his foundation.  After Jim died, the James S. Bower Foundation entered a new phase with Harvey at the helm as President and Chairman and a new Board to help chart a new course.

As a very close friend, Harvey was determined to make Jim’s desire to do good in the world a reality. Harvey set out to do just that. As a long-time resident of Santa Barbara, Harvey had a sense of what the community needed and started from there. He deepened and broadened his understanding by talking to as many people in as many communities as he could reach. Eventually the vision and direction for this version of the Foundation emerged.

SlowlyHarvey began to shape the DNA of the Foundation and its work.

First, as a champion tennis player, Harvey knows that success on the court has as much to do with the working of the mind as the working of the body.  It isn’t so much what you think, but how you think that matters.  This applies to groups as much as individuals.  This is the lens through which we approach the process of change through our grantmaking.

Second, as an entrepreneur, Harvey brings a desire to keep it simple and focus on those things that will garner the most value.  Process for process’s sake is to be avoided. And, with that as an important internal guideline, we work to keep our application and follow-up process as straightforward as possible.

Third, and based on his own experience, Harvey has a deep understanding of the profound importance of the earliest days and years of a child’s life. And how the environment that one is born into and lives in, greatly impacts the trajectory of a life.  From that, comes the Foundation’s secret motto, “earlier.”

On the other end of the arc of life, Harvey sees the under-appreciated opportunities for growth, love and magic that can happen as we approach death.  The bulk of our grantmaking over the last twenty years has gone to these two areas of focus.

Fourth, Harvey knows that we cannot make progress alone.  Many of us have heard him quote M. Scott Peck “in and through community lies the salvation of the world.”  While grantmaking is, at the end of the day, a transaction, we deeply value the relationships we have with funded partners and the community we serve.

Finally, if you know Harvey, you know that Harvey likes to ask “the big questions’’, constantly re-envisioning.  Re-envisioning is as much a practice as it is our byline.   The James S. Bower Foundation is dedicated to consistently and intentionally asking the “big questions” and then helping to provide a meaningful answer leading to the next question. Forever evolving.

To whatever degree the James S. Bower Foundation is able to make a positive difference in this world, it is first and foremost due to Jim’s extremely generous endowment ensuring a long life for his foundation.  And, then to bestow upon Harvey the trust and responsibility of making his dreams come.  He knew that Harvey would do it!