The James Irvine Foundation currently focuses its activities in the Arts, California Perspectives and Youth. Together, these three programs build upon our rich history and meaningful partnerships and provide us with an integrated strategy for serving the people of California now and in the years ahead.

As part of our plan to make the Arts, California Perspectives and Youth programs our sole areas of focus, we dedicated approximately half of our 2003 grantmaking budget to provide for a responsible transition in the five program areas we would be exiting. This effort was made in part to recognize the long commitment to these program areas, commitments that extended to more than eight years of support for our Sustainable Communities program and over 60 years of grantmaking in the higher education field. These past programs included:

• Children, Youth and Families: Irvine partnered with more than 500 organizations to devote over $99 million toward youth-serving programs. Such efforts included a Museum Youth Initiative that sought to strengthen the ability of California museums to educate young people during out-of-school hours and enhance the roles of museums as educational resources, as well as a Youth Development Initiative that supported capacity-building activities for a select group of 20 youth-serving nonprofit organizations in Fresno and Los Angeles. Irvine also funded the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) Initiative in 1999 with the goal of helping to improve the academic achievement of children in the lowest-performing schools in five California cities. Click here to read more about CORAL.
• Civic Culture: Between 1993 and 2003, more than $69 million in investments were made to strengthen organizations that encourage civic engagement and civic debate. The program also supported Central Valley organizations that worked to increase the naturalization of California immigrants and engage them in the civic life of their communities, as well as faith-based institutions that drew new and low-income Californians into civic life.
• Higher Education: The Foundation made its first grant to an institution of higher education in 1943 with a $250 grant to the San Francisco Law School, paving the way for more than six decades of support within the higher education field. Between 1978 and 2003, Irvine provided more than $177 million to over 95 organizations in support of higher education throughout California, supporting a range of activities including capital improvements, fellowship and scholarship programs, general operating funds and academic programs. Since 1987, Irvine has supported higher education institutions to strategically address issues of diversity on their campuses in order to increase the success of underrepresented students in higher education. Click here to read more about the Campus Diversity Initiative, a $29 million effort working with 28 independent colleges and universities in California.
• New Connections Fund: The New Connections Fund was created in 2004 to provide open, competitive funding to small and midsize organizations whose work was well-aligned with Irvine's programs but which had not previously received Irvine funding. From 2004 to 2007, we awarded more than 300 grants, totaling $11 million, to nonprofits across California. More than 75 percent of these organizations had never before received a grant from Irvine. Click here to learn more about the key accomplishments and challenges of the New Connections Fund.
• Sustainable Communities: Between 1995 and 2003, $65 million in grants were made to mobilize diverse coalitions of business, community and government interests working to solve complex regional issues such as sprawl, social equity and workforce development.
• Special Projects: Since 1995, Irvine's Special Projects program supported worthy activities that fell outside our dedicated program areas and provided a flexible mechanism for the Foundation to pursue compelling ideas and one-time opportunities that advanced its mission. Activities supported included training and management consulting to nonprofit organizations, integration of information and communications technologies into the nonprofit sector and a Community Foundations Initiative that assisted a select group of mid-sized community foundations to increase their philanthropic capacities.