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Standing With Communities While Building Forward: A New Vision for The California Endowment

Dear Partners,

The world as we know it keeps changing dramatically. From the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles to the new federal administration that is wreaking havoc and harming our communities, the challenges can feel insurmountable and demoralizing. All of us in this field—nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, and foundations—are faced with the same question: How do we respond in this moment?

In moments of crisis, power dynamics often come into sharper focus. As our communities experience so much trauma and uncertainty, I believe philanthropy must leverage our power and resources to show up in solidarity with communities. As we re-evaluate our role in a dramatically shifting landscape, the sobering reality is that we need a new playbook to respond to these extraordinary times.

When I became the President/CEO of The California Endowment – well before the challenges we are all suffering through today – I brought a vision of reimagining philanthropy to earn the trust of and build power in our communities. This is a vision where community can be truly centered in decision-making to bring about real, profound, equitable change and impact. In this moment, it is more vital than ever to recognize that our ability to advance health justice relies on the power, strength, and resilience of our communities. And I recognize The Endowment must be a leader in modeling what power-building can look like, especially in the way we partner with organizations. We need to adopt a posture of trust-based philanthropy that makes it clear our job is to support YOUR work…your power…your sustainability…and your success. Because when you are strong, the community wins. This is an ethos that will continue to guide The Endowment.

That is why I, along with our Board of Directors and leadership team, have decided to double down on our commitment to health equity and racial justice. Let me be clear – we are prepared to stand boldly with our communities and not concede the policies and values that guide us. We believe in our responsibility to speak truth to power and to utilize our position to aggressively protect and provide critical resources to communities. We know this is necessary given that our north star is “Health and Justice for All Californians.” In short, we are stepping into the moment – not retreating from it.

What “stepping into the moment” might mean for the Endowment in practice? Here are some examples:

Increasing our annual payout to meet this moment
Drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to award grants
Awarding more general operating grants instead of project-specific or program support grants
Engaging in significantly longer commitments, recognizing that change doesn’t happen in one to two years because power building is generational work
Bringing all The Endowment’s resources to bear in service of our mission – our communications platforms, our investments, our facilities, and, of course, our grantmaking dollars
Expanding the types of projects that we can fund, including supporting organizations doing c(4) work

I find myself in this moment of needing to take immediate action and knowing we have work to do before we settle on The Endowment’s next playbook. In the short-term, to help protect our communities throughout California and in the aftermath of the recent election, we committed $10 million to respond to urgent threats and shore up a power-building infrastructure so advocates can wield both a strong offense (set a long-term agenda) and defense strategy (protect wins). These grants have already been issued, intentionally supporting communities under attack. We are also in the process of releasing another round of funding this year that will focus on protecting public benefits, including Medicaid, bolstering non-profit and legal infrastructure for our partners whose very existence is under threat, and deepening support to the organizations serving communities who have and continue to lose rights and protections.

Change can also stem from how we operate internally as a foundation. As part of that effort, I am excited to share new roles I have created in our organization.

Carolyn Wang Kong is our new chief strategy officer, overseeing all program, policy, communications and grantmaking work. Carolyn previously served as the president and executive director of the Asian Pacific Fund and as chief program director at Blue Shield of California Foundation. She received the prestigious Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in health philanthropy. In this role, she will ensure that the Endowment’s key strategic functions are integrated and that we have a cohesive power-building strategy that aims to improve health outcomes for all Californians.

Mynor Veliz will be the Endowment’s First Chief Financial and Operations Officer. He joins us from the Headwaters Foundation in Montana, where he oversaw finance, grants management, IT, human resources, facilities, and a $130 million investment portfolio, and Planned Parenthood, where he was the financial leader. Mynor will lead efforts to streamline processes and systems in ways that can benefit grantee partners.

Kelli P. Washington, our Chief Investment Officer, will be part of the newly formed Senior Leadership Team. She will be responsible for managing our endowment to ensure we have the resources in place to support your important advocacy work. She previously was with the Cleveland Clinic, where she led strategies to oversee $15 billion in assets.

Finally, Tamu Jones, who has been a core member of our program team for 14 years, will become our new vice president of programs, reporting to Carolyn, and will continue to bring stability and leadership to our grantmaking activities.

The landscape has changed significantly, and our collective work is more challenging, but we remain committed to creating a California where every person lives in a healthy and just community, a place where all people can truly thrive.

I look forward to continuing to work in partnership, because we are in this together!

In solidarity,