For the past ten years, Laura Beck has worked with numerous non-profits, including In Defense of Animals, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Home at Last Animal Rescue, and Rocket Dog Rescue, where she currently serves as Vice-President.

As the San Francisco coordinator for California’s Proposition 2 (the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act), Laura worked with The Humane Society of the United States and Farm Sanctuary to ensure the successful passage of the proposition.

Laura loves all things animals and food, but never together! She is a co-founding editor of Vegansaurus.com, the Editor-at-Large for VegNews Magazine, and a regular foster mom to pit bulls.

After extensive volunteer efforts at several Bay Area wildlife and conservation organizations, Livia interned at WildCare, a wildlife hospital and education center in San Rafael, California. The experience would be life-changing; in helping to heal and return wild animals to their homes, Livia truly feels like she has become the person she was meant to be.

After five years on staff, Livia now volunteers her time to help wildlife, particularly critical care patients. Her home often has wild guests ranging from owls to skunks.

Most recently, her work with The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation allows her to make a larger impact on the conservation of wild spaces and also to share her love of learning with underserved Bay Area children by opening up new opportunities for them to experience the world.

GQ once named him Nerd of the Year, TIME put him on their list of most influential persons in the world, and Valleywag dubbed him Most Useless. Biz Stone means different things to different people but the main thrust of his work over the past decade plus has been developing collaborative web systems freely accessed by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

As a progenitor of the early social web, Biz became an Internet entrepreneur in 1999 and went on to work for Google. Later, Stone co-founded Twitter which launched in 2006. In June of 2011 with his long time collaborators Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, Stone co-founded The Obvious Corporation to focus on building systems that help people work together to improve the world.

An adamant believer that when we help others, we also help ourselves, Stone supports a new way of doing business with a higher level of ambition, and a better, more altruistic way to measure success. Beyond immediate needs, Stone advocates selflessness; insisting we follow this path in order to deliver deeper meaning in our work and in so doing, place value before profit.

Along with his wife, Livia, Stone was named a Huffington Post Game Changer for their work and impact in the field of public service. Together, the couple operate The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation supporting education and conservation in California. Stone is an advisor to several companies and organizations and a visiting scholar at various universities.

Biz lives in Marin County, California with his wife Livia.

Donors Choose

By partnering with Donors Choose, The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation has been able to support 121 classroom projects and made a modest impact on the lives of almost 10,000 students mostly located in California with a strong focus on the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to funding projects, Biz and Livia are on the Advisory Board of Donors Choose.

WildCare Bay Area

WildCare is environmental education and advocacy rooted in compassion. In addition to programs, WildCare operates a wildlife rehabilitation hospital, a 24/7 Wildlife Hotline, and a humane wildlife solutions service to address problem wildlife encounters. In addition to funding this organization, Livia has been hands-on for over six years rescuing and rehabilitating injured and orphaned wildlife. Additionally, Biz serves as an honorary board member and co-chair with Livia of the annual fundraising Gala.

PRBO Conservation Science

Founded in 1965 as the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, this nonprofit organization does bird ecology research, creates management tools, leads field science training programs, and develops and delivers bird science education programs to advance biodiversity conservation in the west on land and at sea. PRBO scientists study birds because they are excellent indicators of environmental health—they are top predators, relatively inexpensive to monitor, and widely distributed.

The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation is proud to support PRBO because of their commitment to sound science. Science and conservation programs work to reduce the negative impacts of rapid environmental change. These methods help us understand climate change, landscape ecology, habitat change, and endangered species. Findings are used to evaluate ecosystems and actively guide management and restoration efforts led by government agencies, nonprofits, and private parties.

The Marine Mammal Center

The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation supports The Marine Mammal Center. This organization is a nonprofit veterinary research hospital and educational center dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of ill and injured marine mammals. Their focus is primarily elephant seals, harbor seals, and California sea lions.

Through rehabilitation, the research team based in a state of the art facility in the Marin Headlands studies the causes of various marine mammal illnesses and by doing so, learns about conditions affecting the health of marine mammal populations and the oceans—conditions that can affect humans too.

The Marine Mammal Center inspires stewardship of our oceans with education programs that teach nearly 30,000 students and adults each year about marine mammals and the urgent need for environmental stewardship of earth’s marine environments. The goal is raising awareness of ocean conservation.

The Alta Vista School of San Francisco

The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation supports The Alta Vista School, and independent elementary school in San Francisco’s Mission district. Biz serves as an active advisor to the school as well. Alta Vista emphasizes science, math, and technology with small class sizes and generous financial aid programs.

Students are challenged with a vigorous, interactive approach that engages imagination and nourishes curiosity while providing the stimulation and tools to solve problems and think effectively. Giving back to the community and working with public schools is important to Alta Vista.

School Activities

The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation in partnership with Henry Haight Elementary, and the Alameda Parks and Recreation Department developed a selection of activities for kids along with a simple scholarship application process—all who applied won.

With help from teachers, administrators, and the community at large, we encouraged students to apply for scholarships for activities ranging from camping to a full range of youth sports such as soccer and swimming—even Hawaiian jujitsu.

The families, teachers, administration, and most importantly the kids were energized and excited by this program. Together, we made a modest impact for the Henry Haight community. We look forward to more programs that support our mission in California.

On Site Field Trips

It’s not always possible for kids to go on a field trip so The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation has teamed up with The Marine Mammal Center and WildCare Bay Area to bring the field trip to the classroom! We offer grants to schools we support so the Whale Bus and the Nature Van can pay them a visit.

Guided by professional science educators, the Whale Bus and the Nature Van both teach students about animal characteristics, adaptations, and food webs all without leaving school. The students can examine specimens, and conduct research projects that strengthen their understanding of our natural world.

For families of children who can’t afford the fee and don’t have transportation to visit The Marine Mammal Center or WildCare Bay Area, these mobile learning experiences make a difference. Kids have fun while at the same time broadening their view of our shared environmental responsibilities.

Arts Education Grant

The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation funds modest grants program intended to support art education in the Bay Area. In this time of tightening the belt, we know that many arts programs are on the chopping block. It is our hope that these grants, as modest as they are, will enable teachers to provide students with the supplies they need to create or complete arts programs in their classes.