OVERVIEW: The Weingart Foundation makes unrestricted grants to nonprofits working in a range of areas that advance racial, social and economic justice. This funder partners with organizations in Southern California, making grants within Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties. South and Southeast Los Angeles are regions of particular priority for Weingart.
IP TAKE: Since 2016, the Weingart Foundation has conducted all of its grantmaking through racial equity and immigration justice lenses. It is known for providing unrestricted funding to its grantees. As current president, Joanna Jackson, told IP, “if you want organizations to be most effective in what they do, they need the flexibility to apply resources as they see fit.” In addition to grantmaking, Weingart embraces impact investing and cross-sector partnerships as core to its strategy. Working mainly in SoCal, Weingart’s grants and impact investments address root causes of systemic racism and opportunities to “create wealth in communities of color.” Weingart does not accept unsolicited proposals, but welcomes direct contact with its program officers, whose phone numbers are provided on the staff directory page. This is an accessible funder, especially if your organization operates in the South or Southeastern areas of Los Angeles.
PROFILE: The Weingart Foundation was created by Ben and Stella Weingart in 1951 after they made their fortune in the real estate business. Unlike many wealthy philanthropists in the city, Ben Weingart began life in poverty; he was an orphan with an entrepreneurial spirit. Weingart is best known as the man who created the first planned city in Southern California, Lakewood. In an area once filled with sugar-beet and bean fields, Weingart built a post-World War II era city with 18,000 new homes, one of the region’s first shopping malls, and community service centers. Not only did Weingart’s creation transform Los Angeles into one of the country’s most prominent urban centers, but it also served as a model for suburban planning around the United States.
The Weingart Foundation’s mission is to “partner with communities across Southern California to advance racial, social, and economic justice for all.” Weingart names areas of special interest including housing justice, immigrant/refugee rights and integration, and efforts to strengthen nonprofit effectiveness. Geographically, the foundation focuses on the five counties in Southern California, as well as South and Southeast Los Angeles. The foundation also runs a Strategic Opportunity Fund and a Program Related Investment Fund, which provide investment and/or low-cost financing to social enterprise projects that align with the foundation’s priorities. In past years, it has also run signature programs for leadership development. Note that all granting and investing is conducted through a racial justice lens.
Grants for Housing and Homelessness and Racial Justice
The Weingart Foundation names housing justice as one of its three areas of special interest and acknowledges the high impact of the homeless crisis and high housing costs on communities of color in the greater Los Angeles area. The foundation articulates two grantmaking strategies.
- Grants support organizations that work to increase affordable housing, homeless services and to “build the power” of BIPOC tenants and other who face housing insecurity or homelessness.
- The foundation also supports “bold” efforts to address injustice related to housing and systemic racism.
- Housing justice grantees include the Housing Trust Fund Ventura County, Genesis LA Economic Growth Corporation, the L.A. Family Housing Corporation and LA Voice.
Grants for Immigrants and Refugees
The foundation grantmaking area for immigrant and refugee rights and integration addresses the pressing needs of SoCal’s immigrant communities, which have “long faced exclusion and exploitation largely based on race and income level.” Strategies for this work include:
- Support for organizations that organize and provide services to BIPOC immigrant communities; and
- Support for “systemic efforts” to address harms done by recent immigration policy and the pandemic, as well as general efforts for “full inclusion for immigrants regardless of immigration status.”
- Grantees working in these areas include the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Orange County Grantmakers’ Immigrant and Refugee Liberty Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California and the Transgender Law Center’s Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
Weingart’s third main area of special interest concerns nonprofit effectiveness. The foundation works to strengthen the nonprofit infrastructure of Southern California by providing unrestricted operating support, as well as “targeted efforts” for the development of leaders of color, capacity building and collaborations with philanthropic partners.
- Unrestricted operating support has gone to nonprofits including Dignity and Power Now of Los Angeles, the Thai Community Development Center, Cooperacion Santa Ana and Pukuu Cultural Community Services, which serves the Native American community of Los Angeles.
- Two past signature initiatives, the Youth Organizing Capacity Building Initiative and the John W. Mack Movement Building Initiative, supported non profit leadership development. It is unclear if the foundation will run these or similar programs in the future.
- Philanthropic partners with which the foundation pursues efforts to build nonprofit effectiveness include Philanthropy California, Southern California Grantmakers, the Los Angeles County Economic Resilience Task Force, and others.
Important Grant Details:
The Weingart Foundation’s grants and impact investments can range anywhere from $15,000 to $3 million. Most grants typically range from $25,000 to $400,000.
- This funder’s grants mainly stay in Southern California and prioritize South and Southeast Los Angeles. Very few grants support national organizations or organizations in other geographic areas.
- This funder’s grantmaking is conducted through a racial justice lens; most grantees serve BIPOC communities of Southern California and are steered by BIPOC leadership.
- The Weingart Foundation is known for providing unrestricted operating support to its grantees.
- This funder does not accept applications for funding but welcomes grantseekers and others to contact a program officer.
- For additional information about Weingart’s giving, see its searchable database of grants and investments.
- Further inquiries may be directed to the foundation via email at info@weingartfnd.org or telephone at (213) 688-7799.
- Sign up for the foundation’s newsletter here.
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