Commonwealth Club of California

The Commonwealth Club was founded in 1903 by Edward F. Adams, the Agricultural Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. At its first meeting, Adams read a paper now regarded as the founding document of the club, in which he wrote "I have no fear of lack of following so long as it is self-evident that we only propose to find truth and turn it loose in the world

Four prominent California leaders—University of California president Benjamin Ide Wheeler, San Francisco Chronicle managing editor John P. Young, San Francisco Normal School (later San Francisco State University) president Frederick Burk, and William P. Lawler, a judge who later became a California Supreme Court Justice—co-founded the organization with Adams. The original name for the Club was "The Agora," which in Greek means an open place of civic assembly, but it was quickly changed to "Commonwealth Club," connoting a quest for the common good. The first president of the club was merchant, author, and public official Harris Weinstock.

Other initial club members included Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini, architect Bernard Maybeck, U.S. President Herbert Hoover, Bechtel Corporation founder W. A. Bechtel, members of the Haas family who headed Levi Strauss, Inc., U.S. Senator James Phelan, San Francisco Mayor and California Governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph, Matson Navigation founder William P. Roth, Stanford University president and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D., Bank of California/Union Bank founder William Chapman Ralston, Crown Zellerbach founder J. C. Zellerbach, department store founder Joseph Magnin, California Governor J. N. Gillette, Italian Swiss Colony winery founder Carlo Rossi, and Isaias Hellman, prominent West Coast financier and first president of Wells Fargo Bank. Their goal was cooperation on civic betterment in spite of political and ideological differences. Speakers were invited to address club members to inform them about different perspectives on important issues, after which in its early days the club membership often issued reports, statements, or recommendations on public policy issues.

Presidents of the club in the second half of the 20th century included actress and Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin, and UCSF Chancellor Julius Krevans. Club members include prominent national leaders like former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Defense Secretary William Perry, as well as citizens from professions such as business, law, medicine, teaching, the arts, technology and journalism.

The club has hosted numerous world-class speakers including many U.S. presidents and other major political leaders in the United States and abroad, business leaders, and influential social activists. Speakers receive no honoraria. The club's digital and pre-digital speeches and other records since 1903 are archived at the Hoover Library at Stanford University.

In 2002, The Commonwealth Club launched Inforum, dedicated to serving the needs of people in their 20s and 30s interested in non-partisan public affairs. In 2007, the club created Climate One to bring together academics, industry, and activists on all sides of energy and climate change issues for discussion and planning.

The club has its headquarters in San Francisco. Though the majority of its programs are in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Marin County and Lafayette (in the East Bay area northeast of San Francisco), it also hosts occasional events in Sacramento, Southern California and Washington, D.C. A second, small office serving Silicon Valley is in Milpitas, California.

In September 2017, the club celebrated the opening of its first owned headquarters, a 24,000 square ft, $33 million building, on the San Francisco waterfront at 110 The Embarcadero. The building was designed by Leddy Maytum Stacy, a San Francisco architectural firm and winner of the American Institute of Architects 2017 Firm Award. The building is specifically designed to be a civic forum, with auditoriums, the Meyer Sound Constellation system, Copper Loop hearing technology, informal conversation areas, audio-video production facilities, digital information screens and other unique elements to serve the club's mission. It is also a historic restoration of a building that was the first headquarters of the International Longshoremen's Union. The club's HQ is environmentally sustainable, with features including cooling with outside air, paneling with wood reclaimed from the original building on the site, LED lighting and tile and carpeting with recycled content. It is also located close to public transit facilities serving the Bay Area.