City Lights Foundation

The City Lights Foundation fosters an active engagement with books and literary culture. Our public events, publishing program, and educational outreach are dedicated to sustaining a vibrant community of readers, writers, and independent thinkers. 

The City Lights Future Fund

As we move into a post-founder/owner business model, this is a moment of evolution and transformation for City Lights. We are poised at the beginning of a new era in our institutional history, one that will require a new set of structures, systems and financial models to support it. Our aim is to plan as wisely and strategically as possible in order to protect and preserve the institution into the future, and also to enhance and expand our various cultural and civic roles. 

If you are interested in donating funds to support this effort, please write to us for more information: foundation@citylights.com

Board of Directors: 

Elaine Katzenberger, President

Amy Scholder, Secretary/Treasurer

James Kass, Board Member

San Francisco Poet Laureate Series

The Poet Laureate Series was conceived as a way to augment the Laureates’ work and impact, both within and beyond the boundaries of San Francisco. Each volume documents the Laureate’s poetic voice and vision for the city, and includes the poet’s inaugural address, along with a selection of poems and/or essays. An important historic and cultural artifact, these books are useful educational tools as well, and for the millions of visitors who come through San Francisco each year, they provide a tangible example of the vital and unique cultural life of our city.

Inaugurated in 1998 by the San Francisco Public Library in collaboration with the Office of the Mayor, the position of Poet Laureate was first awarded to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and founder of City Lights Books. He served for two years and was followed by Janice Mirikitani, devorah major, Jack Hirschman, Diane di Prima, Alejandro Murguía, Kim Shuck, and Tongo Eisen-Martin, who is the current Poet Laureate of San Francisco. Eisen-Martin’s laureate book is forthcoming in 2022.

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