Who Is Vanessa Getty? A San Francisco Philanthropist’s Path to Public Service
Some philanthropists come to charitable work later in life, but for Vanessa Getty the habit started early. A profile in the San Francisco Examiner’s Marketplace section traces how a family culture of service shaped her decades of work across animal welfare, the arts, and public health.
Getty was born Vanessa Louise Jarman in San Francisco in 1972. Her father, Claude Jarman Jr., won a Juvenile Academy Award for “The Yearling” and later directed the San Francisco International Film Festival and served as the city’s director of Cultural Affairs. Her mother, Maryann Eve Opperman, danced professionally with the San Francisco Ballet, the Royal Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, and the Joffrey Ballet.
According to family tradition, when a teenage Vanessa complained about school, her mother’s answer was simple: “go volunteer somewhere, then call back.” She attended Lick-Wilmerding High School and University High School in San Francisco before earning a history degree at UCLA. While in Southern California, she volunteered with Animal Rescue Volunteers in Simi Valley, a nonprofit that rescues dogs from shelters.
In 1999, she married William “Billy” Getty at a Napa Valley estate. The couple have three children and co-founded GettyLab, a family philanthropic vehicle. Vanessa Getty went on to build a charitable portfolio that spans several of the Bay Area’s best-known institutions.
Her most enduring project began in 2005, when she founded San Francisco Bay Humane Friends under the umbrella of the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA. The group launched the Bay Area’s first mobile spay-and-neuter clinic, which has now performed more than 9,500 free surgeries.
She also served nine years as a trustee of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which oversees the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, and has been a longtime supporter of amfAR.
Across these roles, the profile describes a consistent approach: identify a systemic gap, build a solution, and stay committed for the long term. Two decades later, the mobile clinic is still operating, a large-animal sanctuary is in development in Half Moon Bay, and the relationships she built continue to sustain the work.
