PAST NCRP IMPACT AWARD WINNERS

Award for Grantmaking Public Charity: The California Community Foundation

Antonia Hernández, President & CEO
California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation (CCF) has been greater Los Angeles’ community foundation since 1915. Its mission is to “strengthen Los Angeles communities through effective philanthropy and civic engagement.”

Under the leadership of President & CEO Antonia Hernández, CCF’s programs focus mainly on fostering educational, economic and cultural opportunity for Angelenos – with special attention to of-color, poor and immigrant residents. In fact, CCF provides a greater percentage of its grant dollars to prioritize and empower marginalized communities than virtually any other community foundation in the nation. CCF masterfully uses the full range of tools at the disposal of a grantmaking public charity to achieve these goals, such as:

• Grants to nonprofits flowing from CCF’s own fundraising, its endowment and the many individual and legacy funds stewarded by the foundation.
• Low-interest loans for affordable housing, health care facility expansion and other human services projects not offered by other lenders.
• Financial, technical and management support to nonprofit organizations.
• Convening and partnering with diverse regional stakeholders in addressing key issues around the arts, education, healthcare, housing and human development.

CCF deploys many of these tools in its “Immigrant Integration Initiative,” a multi-year program seeking to “increase the civic participation of immigrants in L.A. County as a way to improve the quality of life for marginalized immigrant communities and for the county as a whole.” CCF partners with and convenes dozens of community leaders to guide and execute the initiative through a Council on Immigrant Integration, dispenses grants to nonprofits, commissions research and spurs public messaging regarding the needs of L.A. County’s huge immigrant population, and leverages its investment by recruiting other funders to join the effort. At a time when fixing our nation’s broken immigration system has become a high priority, NCRP was particularly impressed with CCF’s leadership in this issue.