We are pleased to announce the election of Gregory M. Avis, a Founding Managing Director of Summit Partners in Palo Alto, as the new Chair of our Board of Directors. Greg joined the Irvine board in 2003 and has served as Vice Chair for the past two years. Avis succeeds Peter J. Taylor, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the University of California, who retired from the board after serving a full board term of 12 years, including three as board chair.

In 1984, Greg helped found Summit, one of the nation's leading private equity and venture capital firms, which has raised nearly $15 billion in capital since its inception. Greg has served on the boards of more than 40 companies primarily in the technology and life sciences industries, including Clontech Laboratories, Ditech Communications, Powerwave Technologies and RightNow Technologies.

Greg’s community activities include current service on the boards of Williams College (Chair), Antioch College, New Profit and ARTSTOR and past service on the boards of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (Chair), San Jose Repertory Theatre (Chair) and the National Outdoor Leadership School. Additionally, he is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum, Silicon Valley.

Irvine is pleased to announce the election of Tim Rios to its Board of Directors. Tim, 42, is based in Fresno as a Senior Vice President for Wells Fargo’s Government and Community Relations Group. He is responsible for implementing the company’s community and economic development programs in Northern and Central California, the Inland Empire and San Diego and Imperial counties.

Tim joined Wells Fargo in 1997 and during the course of his career he has held various positions in retail, wholesale and business banking. He has been recognized by the California State Senate and Assembly and was reappointed to California’s Economic Strategy Panel in 2010 by former Gov. Schwarzenegger. In 2005, he was presented with the Financial Services Champion Award by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

A new study supported by Irvine examines volunteerism within ethnic communities in an attempt to help nonprofits better understand how to attract and engage ethnic volunteers. The book, Telling the Whole Story: Voices of Ethnic Volunteers in America, paints a rich portrayal of the myriad ways in which ethnic populations volunteer their time and highlights key themes and commonalities. Irvine supported the research in 2003 as a special project.

The author, Nora Silver, sought to explore the motivations of volunteerism in seven ethnic communities: African American, American Indian, Central American, Chinese American, Japanese American, Korean American and Mexican American. She wrote the book to relate their stories and to illuminate possible strategies for engaging ethnic communities as volunteers.

“I kept hearing from organizations that they couldn’t find a Latino or African American board member or volunteers from the Southeast Asian community, at the same time that I experienced tons of volunteering from people in these communities,” Silver said. “I wanted to shine a spotlight on their work, have it heard and recognized as the contribution that it is, and educate organizations on how and why people from different ethnic groups get involved.”

San Francisco — The Board of Directors of The James Irvine Foundation has approved 45 grants totaling just over $19 million in support of the Foundation's mission of expanding opportunity for the people of California to participate in a vibrant, successful and inclusive society. (For a list of approved grants, click here.)

Supporting Regranting to California Arts Organizations

Grants approved as part of the Arts program include a $1.125 million grant to Center for Cultural Innovation to support regranting to California artists, organizational strategic planning and new project incubation. Irvine’s Arts program seeks to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians.

Improving State and Local Governance

Grants approved as part of the California Democracy program include two grants totaling more than $3 million to Public Policy Institute of California for its public survey series and related policymaker education activities and to PICO California to support and coordinate the local affiliates’ work on state-level issues and provide capacity-building assistance. These grants are part of the program’s Governance Reform and Civic Engagement priorities, respectively. Irvine’s California Democracy program seeks to advance effective public policy decision making that is reflective of and responsive to all Californians.

San Francisco — The James Irvine Foundation today announced $3.7 million in grants to 13 arts institutions in the Central Coast that are committed to broadening and diversifying their audiences and strengthening their financial sustainability. The organizations selected this year for the Arts Regional Initiative are planning to use the grants to advance financial sustainability within a challenging economic environment and to increase cultural participation from underrepresented communities. While each institution is developing specific plans, initiative participants are implementing operational changes to recalibrate for the current economy, strengthening and diversifying board leadership, and developing culturally relevant artistic programs to attract diverse audiences and deepen their relationships with existing audiences.

"These Central Coast arts organizations are vital anchor institutions within their communities and provide an array of important opportunities for people to engage with the arts," noted Josephine Ramirez, Arts Program Director for the Irvine Foundation. "These grants represent our continued commitment to them as they explore new ways of achieving financial sustainability and attracting culturally diverse audiences."

The organizations represent a mix of artistic disciplines, including music, dance, opera, theater, visual arts and multidisciplinary arts. The grants will be awarded over three years and grantees will share resources, best practices and lessons learned. A complete list of grantees follows:

Arts participation is being redefined as people increasingly choose to engage with art in new, more active and expressive ways. This compelling trend carries profound implications, and fresh opportunities, for a nonprofit arts sector exploring how to adapt to demographic and technological changes.

Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation is a new study commissioned by The James Irvine Foundation and conducted by WolfBrown. It draws insights from more than 100 nonprofit arts groups and other experts in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The report presents a new model for understanding levels of arts engagement as well as case studies of participatory arts in practice. It also addresses many of the concerns that arts organizations may have in supporting participatory arts practices and provides inspiration and ideas for exploring this growing trend.

To say Josephine Ramirez hit the ground running when she joined the Irvine Foundation would be an understatement. Hired as Arts program director in January 2010, Josephine was immediately tasked with refining Irvine’s Arts grantmaking strategy to respond to major shifts affecting California’s arts sector.

Along with her Arts program colleagues, Josephine spent the better part of her first year surveying the broader arts field, talking to grantees and field leaders, and analyzing the major issues that arts organizations were grappling with. As their work developed, Josephine and her Arts team focused on the concept of promoting engagement as the most effective way of helping arts nonprofits adapt to a challenging environment and provide more enriching arts experiences for Californians.

The idea is one that Josephine has had a lot of experience with. As vice president for programming at the Music Center in Los Angeles, she helped create the center’s Active Arts program, which has drawn thousands of Angelenos with outdoor, participatory arts events over the last eight years and helped boost the civic vitality of downtown Los Angeles.