From 2004 to 2007, Irvine provided open and competitive funding through its New Connections Fund (NCF), targeting small and midsize organizations whose work was well-aligned with Irvine's programs but which had not previously received Irvine funding. Through the NCF, we evaluated more than 1,700 applications and awarded more than 300 individual grants, totaling $11 million, to nonprofits across California.

Nearly two-thirds of NCF grant dollars were awarded in the Arts program and the remaining portion was almost evenly divided between California Perspectives and Youth. More than 75 percent of grantees had never before received an Irvine grant. Despite outreach to inland areas of the state, we were largely unsuccessful in our goal to reach more organizations in priority regions. Geographic distribution of NCF grantees was, for the most part, commensurate with population.

Please see our statistical snapshot of the New Connections Fund for more details on these grants.

Accomplishments

Several feedback mechanisms helped us assess the effect of NCF grants, including grantee reports, consultant interviews with grantees and two surveys of NCF grantees. The fund's high-level accomplishments were to:

• Seed fund new arts projects in all disciplines. We funded a wide range of artistic projects within humanities, media and visual and performing arts. We were able to reach a significant number of diverse and ethnically specific organizations, a benefit of being able to reach relatively small organizations. In addition, many Irvine-funded performances and new work won local acclaim, positive critical reviews or awards. In nearly all of these instances, Irvine funding was critical to the project's ability to be presented or it directly funded the work of a new and emerging artist.
• Support the voices of ethnic, low-income and immigrant communities. Through the California Perspectives program, we funded many dialogues between underrepresented communities and public officials, particularly in Southern California. We also identified a handful of NCF applicants, under the Mobilizing Californians priority, which later became part of the core California Perspectives portfolio.
• Help low-income youth apply to college. In the Youth program, we funded an array of "college knowledge" programs, where community-based organizations worked with students from low-income, ethnic or immigrant communities to help them understand that college is a viable option and to help them successfully apply to and enroll in a postsecondary program.
• Enable grantees to leverage the Irvine brand to attract other funding. We heard from a significant number of NCF grantees that they were able to leverage other foundation and individual funding because they had received an Irvine grant. For example, in a 2005 survey of NCF grantees, 71 percent reported that they had been able to attract other funders following an Irvine grant.

Challenges

NCF grantees sought to have greater interaction and connection to Irvine than the program was designed to allow. Irvine staff, as well, indicated the value of increased interactions with grantees to learn more about the organizations and the communities they serve. A key challenge, therefore, was to find alternative ways to manage large numbers of smaller grants without significantly increasing administrative costs and, at the same time, to offer appropriate levels of interaction between grantees and Irvine staff.

We also recognized an opportunity to better meet the needs of organizations in Irvine's priority regions. For example, organizations in the Central Valley and Inland Empire are more likely to be multidisciplinary and less likely to be networked with other organizations, making it more difficult to identify prospective grantees without greater interaction and outreach by Irvine staff. In addition, we reflected that capacity-building support and the possibility of renewal funding, rather than one-time project grants, would increase organizations' – and ultimately Irvine's – long-term impact.

Incorporating lessons learned

Based on feedback received from NCF grantees and applicants, as well as staff reflections, we redesigned the NCF to retain its best features – namely, the open, competitive nature of this well-received small grants fund – and to address the primary challenges. Irvine's Arts program has retained an in-house small grants program, the Creative Connections Fund. The Youth program will work with intermediary organizations to administer a College and Career Connections Fund, and the California Perspectives program will expand its Families Improving Education Initiative through a competitive grants process. Both efforts will support community-based organizations working within specific fields and provide them with grant support, capacity-building and technical assistance.