Our History
The Metta Fund traces its history back to 1854, when the German Benevolent Society was established in San Francisco.
The purpose of the Society was to find jobs, room and board, clothing, medicine and financial support for the German-speaking immigrants who had come to California to strike it rich in the Gold Rush.
The society opened its first medical center, called the German Hospital, in 1858. Originally located on Brannan Street, a fire in 1876 destroyed the building. A new hospital was built in the countryside of the City, at Castro and Duboce, where the Davies campus of California Pacific Medical Center is now located.
In the many years that followed, the hospital was renovated and rebuilt a number of times. The name was changed to Franklin Hospital in 1917, and in 1970 it was renamed the Ralph K. Davies Medical Center in honor of the deceased Mr. Ralph K. Davies, who was the Chairman of the Board.
In 1998, Davies Medical Center merged with California Pacific Medical Center/Sutter Health. Assets associated with the merger became a part of the newly-formed Franklin Benevolent Corporation, now called Metta Fund.
The Metta Fund was founded in the same spirit as the original German Benevolent Society over 140 years earlier—with an altruistic mission of leveraging assets to help address serious issues and needs.
“Metta” is a Buddhist term drawn from an ancient Sanskrit language, and was chosen as our name because of its meaning: loving-kindness, benevolence.
Between the years 1998 and 2009, Metta Fund and Franklin Benevolent Corporation provided San Francisco nonprofit organizations with over $55 million in funding.
To read more about the history of the Davies Medical Center, visit: http://www.cpmc.org/about/history/timeline.html
