Child & Family Well-Being Funders Collaborative

Child & Family Well-Being Collaborative group convenes quarterly to focus on policy reform and related advocacy efforts in the areas of child welfare and foster care; and to explore opportunities for private support for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services related projects.

 

 

LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment

LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment (the Partnership) is a philanthropic funding collaborative comprised of some of the country's largest private foundations, impactful family foundations and public funders of early childhood development. The LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment is dedicated to realizing the potential of every child in Los Angeles County. We are a diverse collaboration of funders and government agencies that promotes innovations to prepare children for success when it is most effective and impactful for us all: in the earliest years.

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Los Angeles Arts Funders

LA Arts Funders is a peer learning group that provides opportunities for public and private sector grantmakers to deepen their knowledge of arts philanthropy, expand their professional networks, and explore topical issues affecting LA County's arts and culture ecosystem.

LA Arts Funders is open to public and private sector grantmakers that fund arts grants in the Southern California region. Grantmaking organizations that also solicit funds are expected to designate representatives whose role involves program and/or policy, not solely development. Philanthropic consultants must be current members of Southern California Grantmakers.

 

 

Education Funders Group

Meeting for over a decade, the Education Funders Group brings philanthropic funders together to learn about issues, trends, and needs in the field of education (Pre K through 12th grade) to inform individual and collective grantmaking. Ideas for topics are proposed by funders, who work with the co-conveners to organize a learning session. Over the years, the group has explored a variety of topics, including early childhood education, after school programming, parent engagement, blended learning, linked learning, STEM, implementation of the common core, and college access/college success. Founded by Ray Reisler, former Executive Director of the S. Mark Taper Foundation, the group's current co-chairs are Dorothy Fleisher, Program Director, W. M. Keck Foundation, and Peter Rivera, Senior Program Officer, Education, California Community Foundation.

 

 

Environmental Funders Group

The Southern California Grantmakers (SCG) Environmental Funders Group meets quarterly to educate prospective and current environmental funders about environmental challenges and opportunities in Southern California as well as foster collaboration and share successes and challenges. This convening concept was developed in partnership between members of the SCG Environmental Funders Steering Committee, SCG staff, and Ron Milam (who as a consultant, helps organize these convenings).

Steering Committee Members

  • Alex Paxton, Water Foundation
  • Elliot Ponchick, Bannerman Foundation
  • Gisele Fong, The California Endowment
  • Frida Hatami, Roy and Patricia Disney Foundation
  • Jon Christensen, SCG Individual Member/Donor Advised Fund/Liberty Hill Board
  • Michele Prichard, Liberty Hill Foundation
  • Will Parish, SCG Individual Member and Ten Strands
  • Calleen Pardinas, Ventura County Community Foundation
  • Ashley Eddington, Kaiser Permanente
  • Marta Segura, City of LA
  • Lauren Faber O’Conner, City of LA
  • Malcolm McVay, Individual Donor
  • Angelo Logan, Liberty Hill (tentative)

Please contact Katy Pelissier at katy@socalgrantmakers.org for more information.

 

 

Foundation Aging Network

An informal group of grantmakers from across all of Southern California interested in sharing issues related to serving an older adult population.

 

 

Health Funders Group

The SCG Health Funders Group convenes multiple times a year to explore emerging issues in healthcare and health policy through an intersectional approach. The group hosts topic-based and peer-to-peer learning sessions. These facilitated sessions will provide a forum for updates on critical issues, highlights of promising programs and opportunities for collaboration.

 

 

Inland Empire Funders Alliance

The Funders Alliance is a collaborative network of organizations with significant formal grantmaking activities in the Inland Empire region of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties that have joined together to increase communication, coordination, and collaboration. Grantmakers interested in learning more about the region for potential funding are welcome to join the meetings to connect with peers.

Southern California’s Inland Empire region of San Bernardino and Riverside counties is one of the fastest-growing population centers in the United States. Located 40 miles east of Los Angeles, the IE is rich in diversity, culture, history and economic opportunity. The IE Funders Alliance is committed to partnering with the region’s 11,000 innovative, resourceful, mission-driven nonprofit organizations to help the region’s 4.5 million people fulfill their extraordinary promise and potential. The Inland Empire presents foundations, corporate funders, and public agencies with a unique opportunity for alignment, leverage, and positive impact. We are the IE. We are the New California.

The Funders Alliance mission is to advance equity, advocacy and systemic change in the Inland Empire by uplifting the region’s assets and opportunities, and leveraging resources for impact. The primary goals of the Funders Alliance are:

  • Regional networking and information sharing among funders and with other sectors.
  • Advocacy for the needs of the region, its nonprofits, and communities.
  • Alignment and leveraging of funds to maximize impact on common goals.
  • Increasing the capacity of service providers within the region.

 

 

Ventura County Funders Forum

Southern California Grantmakers, Ventura County Community Foundation, and First 5 Ventura County are pleased to sponsor the Ventura County Funders Forum, a forum for foundations, grant makers and funders who support charitable organizations in Ventura County, advancing the public good and the work of nonprofits. All organizations that provide grants to nonprofit organizations in Ventura County are welcome to attend and participate in a forum designed to educate, inform, share and collaborate where similar goals, charitable intent, multiple visions, dedicated philanthropy and informed experience can find common ground.

 

 

Veterans Funders Group

The Veteran Funders Group focuses on members’ response efforts in relation to veterans and military families, trends and challenges our nonprofit partners are facing, and opportunities for philanthropy to take a strategic role in our region’s veteran space in the months and years to come. Meetings are led by SCGs Veteran Issues Consultant – Nate Graeser.

 

 

Workforce Funders Group

The SCG Workforce Funders Group convenes funders from various disciplines working with systemically and historically excluded communities to promote equitable access to quality jobs in the Southern California (SoCal) grantmakers region. The group focuses on advancing workforce development and educational approaches that seek to ensure young people have employment opportunities that help them thrive and lead to upward mobility and equitable outcomes.  As part of its work together, the group will share learning, create networking opportunities, and explore various funding models to inform individual and collective grantmaking. 

The primary goals of the workgroup are to: 

  • Build an engaged and aligned funder community that works together to think strategically about how various career preparation, supports and pathways fit within their grantmaking to support a spectrum of education and workforce opportunities. 
  • Create a learning and action-focused collaborative of grantmakers committed to advancing solutions that improve workforce development systems (broadly defined) that are centered in racial equity and are informed and led by impacted communities. 
  • Engage the local philanthropic community on best practices, share lessons learned, policy development, and other learning in the field to inform individual and collective grantmaking.
  • Support individual and collective investments that encourage public systems to adopt approaches and collaborations that expand education, training, and innovative models that ensure equitable access to quality jobs with sustainable wages.

Consultants

Alexa Eggleston
Founder and Managing Partner, Audacia Consulting LLC

Dr. Kimá Joy Taylor MD, MPH
Founder, Anka Consulting LLC

Meet the Steering Committee Members

  • Elizabeth Cheung, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

  • Jason Cordova, The James Irvine Foundation

  • Joseph Devall, The Ballmer Group, Los Angeles

  • Lindsey Kozberg, The Smidt Foundation

  • Piper Kamins, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation

  • Kristen Sakoda, LA County Department of Arts & Culture

Rationale

Youth and young adults need a clear and credible pathway to a full range of careers that match their career and job skills. The SoCal grantmakers region lacks equitable access to stable employment, not allowing people to cover basic human needs for themselves and their families reliably. Lack of living wage jobs profoundly affects health and wellbeing, not just for individuals and families, but for the communities in which they live. For this reason, it is imperative to support workforce development, engagement, retention efforts, and related educational approaches that create equitable access and outcomes. To accomplish these shared goals, the SoCal grantmakers region will require collaboration and alignment across multiple strategies and sectors. There is currently no SCG funder group focused on workforce development/career pathways and their intersection with other systems, a gap this group seeks to fill. This collaborative seeks to bring together the efforts of foundations implicitly or explicitly funding workforce and related efforts, to identify ways they can learn and work in partnership, and to build a SoCal region where all people have livable wages and equitable employment.