March / April 2004

Dear Friends,

I am pleased to introduce you to Irvine's redesigned and expanded website, which includes a number of new features and creates a platform for future expansion of Irvine's online presence.

With the new site, we are now able to accept grant applications online, thereby simplifying the process for those seeking to communicate with the Foundation and helping us to interact with our "customers" in a more efficient manner. In addition, we have created a new feature section, called California Profiles, to highlight the work of our partners throughout California and to communicate more directly some of the lessons we are learning from our work.

We have also expanded the information about an additional resource we make available to nonprofits serving Californians, free of charge: our conference facilities in San Francisco. Named in honor of Morris M. Doyle, who served as Chairman of the Irvine Foundation from 1976 to 1989, our conference rooms can accommodate a maximum of 50 guests. Nonprofit organizations do not have to meet Irvine's current funding priorities in order to use our conference facilities; the conference rooms can be used by any charitable organization which meets a simple set of requirements.

Perhaps the most significant change is the creation of a process for online grant applications. Like most foundations, we identify grant possibilities in two ways: through the work of our program staff who are scanning the field to identify prospective grantees, and by responding to direct inquiries from grantseekers. In the past, we have accepted inquiries within all program areas and have asked grantseekers to send us a short letter of introduction via postal mail. We then considered these inquiries throughout the year.

These unsolicited inquiries (called "Letters of Inquiry" in the foundation sector) have historically made up a very small percentage of our grantmaking. For example, in 2002, before we began our strategic planning process, unsolicited inquiries accounted for less than one percent of all grants awarded by Irvine.

This past summer, a team of staff worked to redesign the process by which we handle these direct inquiries. Our objectives were to increase the number of new organizations in our grantmaking portfolio, to create a genuinely competitive process with predictable turnaround, and to more clearly communicate our criteria for selection. We also realized that technology—and the use of our website—could be extremely useful in helping us achieve these objectives. The result is an online grant application process which:

• Has a dedicated grants budget of just under $2 million for 2004;
• Uses a streamlined application, to reduce the amount of time a grantseeker must spend preparing a proposal;
• Has predictable deadlines and batches applications to permit analysis and comparison across ideas and organizations;
• Offers clear information about the criteria for selection; and
• Uses technology and online tools wherever possible.

We look forward to our first batch of online applications, which will be reviewed in mid-July (for consideration by our board in October), and in the months ahead, we plan to survey grantseekers about the utility of the online application and its ease of use.

In launching this website, we are also committed to building on it in response to feedback from our users. We consider the website to be a work in progress and are currently developing new content, which we expect to add in the months ahead, including:

• Grantmaking guidelines for our Youth and California Perspectives programs, which will be released later this spring.
• Online grant applications for our Youth program, to be opened later this spring, with an application deadline of July 15.
• New feature content to spotlight statewide trends, present regional data, and provide current information on important issues facing California.

I invite you to sign up for regular updates about our site, so that we might notify you when new features are posted. And, as always, I appreciate your interest in the Irvine Foundation's work and welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.

Sincerely,

James E. Canales
President & CEO

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