Mark Jacobs is many things.  As a lawyer, he went on to start his own firm and practically never lost a case in his entire career.  But billing every six minutes didn't satisfy his communitarian side, so he would host inspired musicians in his home, volunteer with many causes, share meals with homeless.  Now, he's mostly retired but loves to write opinionated pieces on his blog. :) One time, his mother commented that he's always succeeded in everything he does -- and that perhaps it was an indication that he just shyed away from things he wouldn't be good at.  Taking that seriously, Mark has most recently started struggling with soccer. :) 

 

In ServiceSpace, of course, many are fond of Mark for his many unconditional offerings of service.  In his own words ...

"Here's my 'Coming to CF' story ..."

 

It was a Saturday in June of 1999.  Yoo-Mi had spotted a craigslist notice for meeting of a group proposing to build websites for small nonprofit organizations – a nice way to practice html and do some constructive volunteering at the same time, she thought.  The meeting, it turns out, was the very first new volunteer orientation meeting of CharityFocus (now ServiceSpace). 

 

We drove down from San Francisco together, and I dropped Yoo-Mi at the Sun Microsystem campus for the meeting.  For the next few blissful hours, I was on my mountain bike, marauding the singletrack in the forested hills above Woodside.  It was a perfect day on the trails and I was still grinning from ear-to-ear when I returned to the Sun campus to pick Yoo-Mi up from her meeting.  The strange thing was: I was not the most effervescent person in the car. 

 

“You absolutely have to meet these kids,” Yoo-Mi enthused.  “They are so damned smart!” “Kids?” I asked.  “The oldest among them is only barely out of college,” she reported, suddenly making our spitting-distance-of-forty seem long-in-the-tooth.  All the way back to the city, she regaled me with descriptions of the brilliant, engaged “kids” she’d met. 

 

I soon had my chance.  The next CF meeting was at our house in San Francisco.  I’ve been mark at charityfocus dot org ever since.