University of San Francisco Announces Janet & Clint Reilly as Recipients of the 2021 Leo T. McCarthy Center Award for Public Service
SAN FRANCISCO (January 11, 2022) — The Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco (USF) has announced Bay Area philanthropists Janet and Clint Reilly as the recipients of the 2021 Award for Public Service.
“Janet and Clint Reilly have a long history of uplifting and supporting future leaders from underserved communities throughout the Bay Area. We have absolutely appreciated their continued support of Leo T. McCarthy Center and USF,” stated McCarthy Center Senior Director Derick Brown. “It’s an honor to further acknowledge their work and the support they have continued to provide our society.”
The Leo T. McCarthy Award for Public Service is awarded biannually to those whose work makes a difference in the lives of people most affected by injustice. The award recognizes persons of significant accomplishment who continue to lead for progressive change serving the common good. Like the award’s namesake, winners inspire others to lead, devote their energy to equity and justice, and maintain the highest ethical standards in their personal and professional lives. Public service is defined broadly to include persons in government, philanthropy, education, and the nonprofit world.
This year’s award recipients, Janet and Clint Reilly, founded Bay Scholars, a nonprofit that creates educational equity for students from underserved communities through four-year scholarships to successful Catholic college-prep high schools in the Bay Area. Bay Scholars’ formula is to recruit great students, connect them with great schools, and remove the greatest barrier to education -- cost. To date, Bay Scholars has awarded more than $7 million in scholarships. The Reillys also tirelessly devote their time and resources to numerous other charitable organizations.
Janet Reilly is the co-founder and board president of Clinic by the Bay, a free, volunteer-powered health clinic for the working uninsured in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Established in 2010, Clinic by the Bay is 100 percent privately funded and does not rely on government funding. Clinic by the Bay is located in the Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, a medically underserved area with few health and social services.
In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Ms. Reilly to the University of California Regents for a term expiring in 2028. From 2015-2018, Ms. Reilly served on the Presidio Trust Board of Directors, a position she was appointed to by then-President Barack Obama. Previously she was director of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District from 2003 to 2015, where she was president of the Board of Directors from 2010 to 2012. She is currently an advisory board member of the Walt Disney Family Museum and the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, and a board member of the CommonSpirit Foundation.
Clint Reilly is the founder and owner of a diversified family of commercial real estate, hospitality and media businesses in San Francisco. His wholly owned portfolio includes five office buildings in the Financial District and Jackson Square, as well as the historic Julia Morgan Ballroom and Merchants Exchange Club event venues. Reilly’s media holdings include the 156-year old San Francisco Examiner, the SF Weekly and Nob Hill Gazette. The company also owns and operates Credo restaurant. Reilly was named by San Francisco Business Times as one of the Bay Area’s “Most Admired CEOs” in 2018.
Clint Reilly is a current member of the Board of Directors for the Bay Area Council, also serving on the Advisory Board of UC Berkeley’s Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics & Public Service, as well as USF’s President’s Advisory Board. A strong supporter of the arts, Reilly also serves on the accessions and collections committees for the SFMOMA, and on the board of the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis. He served on the Board of Directors for Catholic Charities of San Francisco from 1997-2006, including as President of the Board — the first layperson to hold the post — from 2002-2006. Clint and Janet Reilly founded the Archbishop’s ‘Loaves and Fishes’ Dinner as part of a fundraising initiative that erased a multi-million-dollar operating deficit and put the social services arm of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco on solid financial footing. Catholic Charities, whose door is open to all, operates approximately 30 programs serving 40,000 people in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. Clint also served as president of the board of directors of the Oakland Military Institute, a successful charter school in northwest Oakland.
Prior to his current business career, Reilly was one of the country’s foremost political consultants, with Clinton Reilly Campaigns helping elect a series of leaders who would go on to become champions for families, the environment and the poor, including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dianne Feinstein.
The Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good is dedicated to inspiring and preparing students at USF to pursue lives and careers of ethical public service. The McCarthy Center provides a forum for education, service and research in public policy-making and programs for the common good, supporting undergraduate and graduate academic programs, service learning, and government experiences for students.
Leo T. McCarthy, Speaker of the Assembly from 1974 to 1980 and Lieutenant Governor of California from 1983 to 1995, was a man of great political wisdom and personal integrity. He began his career in the 1960s as a San Francisco supervisor and was instrumental in establishing the city’s Human Rights Commission and keeping freeways out of Golden Gate Park. He was a champion of people without a voice and those pushed to the margins.
USF plans to officially present the Reillys with the Leo T. McCarthy Award at an event to be held Thursday, March 3, 2022, bringing together civic leaders, dignitaries, philanthropists and McCarthy Center supporters to celebrate the center’s mission to train a new generation of leaders dedicated to ethical public service.
About the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at USF
The Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good is dedicated to inspiring and equipping students at USF to pursue lives and careers of ethical public service, and the service to others. The center provides a non-partisan forum for education, service and research in public programs and policy-making. It supports undergraduate and graduate academic programs, including a master’s program in public affairs and an undergraduate minor in public service. Additionally, the McCarthy Center provides community-based learning opportunities and facilitates government experiences for students. Engage San Francisco is a transformative university-community partnership that achieves community-identified outcomes supporting children, youth and families in The Fillmore/Western Addition neighborhood through student learning, research and teaching aligned with USF’s mission and vision. This university-wide initiative supports neighbors living below San Francisco’s poverty level to achieve their full potential in education, health, and career development, and housing. For more information, visit https://www.usfca.edu/mccarthy.
About the University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco is a private, Jesuit Catholic university that reflects the diversity, optimism, and opportunities of the city that surrounds it. USF offers more than 230 undergraduate, graduate, professional, and certificate programs in the arts and sciences, business, law, education, and nursing and health professions. At USF, each course is an intimate learning community in which top professors encourage students to turn learning into positive action, so the students graduate equipped to do well in the world — and inspired to change it for the better. For more information, visit usfca.edu.