OVERVIEW: The California Endowment (TCE) focuses its grantmaking on health care, health equity, and health access in the state of California. Taking a broad approach to health, TCE also funds criminal justice reform, youth programs, education, community development, and policy advocacy throughout California.
IP TAKE: The California Endowment (TCE) is a must-know for nonprofits operating in California, with nearly $3.5 billion in assets and hundreds of millions in annual grantmaking. While once primarily a healthcare funder, TCE has broadened its focus to embrace a more holistic understanding of health and the many social determinants of health outcomes. According to a recent IP analysis, the endowment has pivoted to supporting programs that recognize that health “is not determined just by access to healthcare or even the quality of the healthcare, but by the historical, structural and systemic community conditions and the policies that shape them.” This is a collaborative funder that is involved in many pooled funds and public-private partnerships in the state.
The California Endowment does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. For TCE’s many current grantees, the foundation’s once-bureaucratic grantmaking process has become more inclusive and collaborative, and a higher proportion of TCE’s grants are now for general operating support. “We are now committed to a trust-based approach where we’re giving the power and removing the roadblocks for communities to really decide themselves how to allocate resources,” the endowment’s chief learning officer told IP in 2021. Interested grantseekers may try to network with TCE’s grantees to get on this funder’s radar, or participate in one of TCE’s programs and events.
PROFILE: The California Endowment was created in 2006 with proceeds from Blue Cross Blue Shield of California’s acquisition of WellPoint Health Networks. Since then, the California Endowment has become the largest private health foundation in California. This funder pursues a mission to “expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians.”
This funder makes grants and impact investments across five focus areas: Health Systems, Inclusive Community Development, Justice Reinvestment, Power Infrastructure and Schools. The endowment awards single- and multi-year grants for program and project support, general operations, direct charitable activities and program-related investments. Giving targets “four large regions that encompass the majority of California”: Northern California, Central California, Los Angeles and Southern California.
Grants for Public Health and Access
Grantmaking for Health Systems, the endowment’s largest giving area, focuses on providing all Californians with “access to quality and affordable health care.” The endowment approaches its health giving holistically and works to support a state-wide system that connects care with “other culturally appropriate community wellness resources.” Other areas of interest include the development of a health care workforce that is representative of California’s diverse population and rebalancing the health care industry to incentivize positive outcomes over profit.
- Some of the endowment’s largest health grants have supported the Public Health Institute of Oakland, Sacramento’s Health Access Foundation, Berkeley’s Lifelong Medical Care and the Children’s Partnership, which connects low-income families in the Los Angeles area with affordable health care coverage.
- Grants for community wellness have supported organizations like Fresno Building Health Communities, the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, Sacramento Area Congregations Together, the California Black Health Network, the California School-Based Health Alliance and Oakland’s Urban Habitat Network.
- The endowment’s grants for education and development of a diverse health care workforce have supported Oakland’s Health Career Connection, the Foundation for California Community Colleges and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.
- At the lower end of its giving, grants have supported many small, community-led health initiatives that bring needed services to underserved communities. Grantees include the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective of Culver City, the Contra Costa Regional Health Foundation, Los Angeles’s Southeast Asian Community Alliance and Generation Red Road, a Native American-led nonprofit in Upper Lake, California that runs addiction recovery and prevention programs.
Grants for Community Development, Racial Justice, Immigrants, Civic Engagement and Democracy
The California Endowment’s grantmaking for community resilience, equity and inclusion stem from its Community Development and Power Infrastructure programs.
- The Inclusive Community Development focus area targets initiatives that strive for health and racial equity for all Californians and address “the role of capital and its impact on the health of communities.” The program names a broad ten-year goal of “building enough power to ensure that human health and dignity and the sustainability of our planet are put before private profit.”
- Similarly, the Power Infrastructure focus area works to develop “an ecosystem of organizations” among most-affected communities to engage in “policy, systems change [and] electoral campaigns to advance a shared agenda.”
- The endowment does not distinguish which of its grants stem from each focus area, but grants related to these goals have supported San Francisco’s Community Vision Capital & Consulting, the Community Media Access Collaborative in Fresno, Power California in Los Angeles and the California Budget and Policy Center.
- The foundation has also supported small, grassroots organizations working for equitable community development and organizing. Grantees include the BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center in Fresno, Voice for Orange County, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Hispanas Organized for Political Equality and Oakland’s Tola Organizing Academy.
- A number of organizations providing legal and human services to immigrants in California have received support. Grantees include the United Cambodian Community of Long Beach, the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, the California Immigrant Policy Center and Centro Cultural de Mexico en el Condado de Orange.
- A signature planned project, the Robert K. Ross Center for Hope and Healing, will create 124 affordable housing for “formerly incarcerated, unhoused, and economically disadvantaged residents.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
The California Endowment names Justice Reinvestment as a priority area of engagement and envisions “a criminal justice system that centers on prevention and healing.” Giving focuses on structural racism as a major cause behind the disproportionate number of people of color in the justice system, as well as the impact of the justice system on social determinants of health for affected families. The endowment’s approach involves disinvestment from the existing justice system and support for “prevention, restorative and health-promoting resources for communities with the greatest needs.”
- Grantees include the Network on Women in Prison, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition of Los Angeles, Oakland’s Alliance for Safety and Justice and the Anti Police-Terror Project, also of Oakland.
- Youth justice and prevention appear to be a strong area of focus. Grants have gone to the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, the Youth Leadership Institute in San Francisco and Alive and Free, a San Francisco organization that aims to “keep young people alive and free, unharmed by violence, and free from incarceration.”
Grants for K-12 Education
The California Endowment’s grantmaking for Schools focuses on improving academic achievement for all students in California and effecting “inclusive learning environments.” This program prioritizes schools that serve communities of color and traditionally marginalized populations. This is a smaller area of giving, with grants supporting K-12 and higher education programs and initiatives, as well as policy development for inclusive and equitable education throughout the state of California.
- Grantees for K-12 education include Los Angeles’s Academia Semillas Del Pueblo, the Parent Institute for Quality Education, Black Students of California United, Oakland Kids First and the Vision 2000 Education Foundation, which runs programs to help K-12 students “overcome deficits” in reading and mathematics.
- Higher education grants have supported the State Center Community College Foundation, the University of Southern California and multiple campuses of the University of California and California State University.
Important Grant Details:
Grants have been awarded in amounts of up to tens of millions, but generally range from $15,000 to $500,000.
- This funder makes hundreds of grants a year to organizations of all sizes in the state of California.
- The California Endowment’s grantmaking is conducted through a health equity lens. Health is the endowment’s largest area of giving, and other giving areas reflect the importance of equity, community development and education as important predictors of health and wellness.
- This funder does not accept applications for funding, but grantseekers may wish to reach out to staff at one of the endowment’s five locations throughout the state.
- For information about past giving, see the news page and a recent annual report.
- Submit general inquiries to the California Endowment via email at questions@calendow.org or call (800) 449-4149.
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