May / June 2004

Dear Friends,

As this spring marks the conclusion of my first year as Irvine's President and CEO, it seems an appropriate time to look back over the past twelve months at the Foundation. During this period, we have completed the restructuring of virtually every aspect of Irvine's operations, from mission to grantmaking to the leadership team.

Our mission to expand opportunity for the people of California is derived from Mr. Irvine's mandate for our philanthropic institution. Our grantmaking activities flow directly from this mission with three interconnected programs:

• Arts, seeking to foster creativity, encourage cross-cultural understanding, and stimulate a vibrant artistic community throughout the state;
• California Perspectives, created to inform public understanding, engage Californians and to improve decision-making on significant issues of long-term consequence to California. As our newest program, California Perspectives focuses on the importance of effective governance for our state, looking at how we might support efforts that promote solutions to the state's governance challenges and illuminate the public's voice on those issues.
• Youth, supporting low-income youth to make successful transitions from high school to post-secondary education, to meaningful work experiences, and to productive citizenship. We embrace the fact that there are multiple paths to get to the same door, and our grantmaking seeks to provide youth with substantive options to navigate successfully the road to productive, healthy adulthood.

With our programmatic directions endorsed by the Board of Directors, we recently published a comprehensive set of funding guidelines for California Perspectives and Youth to accompany those released earlier for the Arts.

We have also sought to articulate more clearly why we make certain funding choices and to be ever more transparent in our work. Toward this end, we have included in our funding guidelines—for the first time—a comprehensive set of review criteria to shed light on the Foundation's review processes and to assist grantseekers to assess the competitiveness of their projects and organizations. In addition, as announced in my last message, we have inaugurated a new system for online grant applications, which will help the Foundation meet new grantseekers, whom we might not identify through our normal networking channels.

In building a staff that is aligned with strategy, I am pleased to report that our senior leadership team is now in place. We have recently appointed Diane Olberg as Director of Communications, and, as previously announced, Amy Dominguez-Arms will be leading our California Perspectives program, joining Elisa Crystal Callow as Program Director for the Arts program and Anne Stanton as Program Director for the Youth program. At the board level, Steve Schroeder, former President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, recently joined our Board of Directors, bringing to the Foundation substantive experience in philanthropy.

In closing, as I reflect upon my first twelve months as President and CEO, I am reminded what a tremendous privilege it is to be working with our board and staff, and our many partners in communities across this state, to serve the people of California. Despite the challenges confronting all of us in California, we are optimistic about the possibilities and heartened by the dedication and commitment of those we are honored to support.

As always, I appreciate your interest in the Irvine Foundation's work and welcome your comments, questions and suggestions at any time.

Sincerely,

James E. Canales
President & CEO

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