Dear Friends,

Here are four views of California from the national media, just in the past month:

“Far from presiding over a Greek-style crisis, Gov. Jerry Brown is proclaiming a comeback.”
Paul Krugman column, The New York Times, March 31

“You can laugh at the sunbaked barbarians, even wish them ill. But you should not fail to see in their fledgling renaissance another chapter in the American experiment, no less daring than the Golden Gate Bridge or the castle that Hearst erected at continent’s edge.”
Timothy Egan column, The New York Times, March 28

“The more powerful message is where people are going when they leave states like California and New York, two states ranked among the “least free” in a recent study by the Mercatus Institute. They are going to red states where, according to Mercatus, there is greater individual freedom, less government regulation and lower taxes. Earth to Jerry Brown: California, you have a problem.”
David Davenport column, Forbes.com, April 11

“But, in the end, Brown has done little but slap a temporary, inadequate patch on a dysfunctional system of financing and service provision that needs a fundamental rethink if California is to build a better future.”
Matt Miller column, The Washington Post, April 4

I am pleased to share two exciting developments for us at The James Irvine Foundation.

First, effective today, we relocated our San Francisco headquarters to a new home in downtown San Francisco. We have moved across the street from our former location at 575 Market Street to One Bush Street, at the intersection of Market and First streets. This relocation was motivated by several factors. We wanted to secure a long-term lease during a time of steadily increasing rental rates and decreasing inventory in the San Francisco commercial marketplace. In addition, this move will enable us to consolidate our San Francisco staff onto a single floor (the 8th floor at One Bush) as opposed to being spread out across two floors, thereby creating more opportunities for internal collaboration as well as operational efficiency.

Our new building, the Crown-Zellerbach Building, is an historic 1959 building that was the first significant downtown structure erected after the Great Depression. It has historic landmark status and is recognized as an environmentally friendly building. The new office remains centrally located, which was a key priority for us, so our visitors will still be able to use all forms of public transportation to reach us (our location provides convenient access by BART to both the Oakland and San Francisco airports).

Dear Friends,

Within the past few weeks, I have read with interest the observations of a number of active bloggers in the arts field whom I have come to respect and admire: Nina Simon, Diane Ragsdale, Clay Lord and Barry Hessenius. Each of them has blogged on aspects of the Irvine Foundation’s new arts strategy and, in doing so, has contributed to a robust dialogue that has played out on their respective blogs as well as on Twitter.

And that’s what prompts my contribution to this discussion: I will comment only lightly on the substantive issues they have raised related to our Arts strategy as my colleague, Josephine Ramirez, who directs our Arts program, plans to post a more substantive comment on those issues in the next week or so. There is another aspect of this discussion that I do want to comment upon and invite others to engage on with me and my colleagues in philanthropy.

From my early days as Irvine’s CEO, and with great support from our Board of Directors, I have placed a premium on transparency, both with regard to our work at Irvine and for the broader field of philanthropy. I have certainly not been alone in this quest (Brad Smith at the Foundation Center is probably our field’s leading champion), and I think it’s a fair observation to say that the field has come a long way in the past decade.

Dear Friends,

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2013 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards. The awards recognize Californians who are implementing innovative, effective solutions to critical state issues. This year’s recipients are particularly collaborative in their approaches and excel at building upon the resourcefulness and determination of California’s residents to improve the future of our state.

They are:

The Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Los Angeles, is known for its annual conferences about California. Every year, the institute has brought together influential leaders to examine the range of opportunities and challenges facing the state. Irvine was a sponsor of this year’s conference.

At the all-day event held earlier this month, after sessions on a range of issues – including education, energy and the state’s finances – the focus of the conference turned to leadership. In a panel discussion moderated by Irvine President and CEO Jim Canales, several California leaders from the business, nonprofit and educational sectors offered their thoughts about what inspires them about California today and how leaders can build and shape investments in its future.

On November 11, The Washington Post ran a collection of five pieces by leaders in the nonprofit arts sector touching on issues raised by the current plight of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Long a premier cultural institution in Washington – located across the street from the White House – the Corcoran is struggling to forge a sustainable future. Irvine President and CEO Jim Canales was among the leaders invited to share their views; he wrote about the importance of a constructive partnership between an organization’s chief executive and its board. His contribution is reprinted here:

Having served on and chaired many nonprofit boards, as well as having been chief executive of a large foundation for nine years, I know that when partnerships between a nonprofit’s board and its chief executive work well, they create the conditions for high performance. A constructive partnership:

I described in my last letter some of the institutional planning work underway at the Irvine Foundation this year. Related to that effort, and as part of our continuing commitment to learning from the Foundation’s various stakeholders, we conducted a stakeholder assessment survey to receive feedback about our work. I am using this quarter’s letter to share more about this survey as well as what we learned from it.

In-depth, confidential interviews were conducted by a third-party consultant with more than 60 leaders in our fields of work, the nonprofit community in general, and philanthropy. The interview questions focused on awareness and perceptions of the Irvine Foundation; the perceived impact of our work, broadly and in our program areas; and feedback on direct experience and interactions with the Foundation. We also asked questions about the challenges and opportunities facing California.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the appointment of Don Howard as Executive Vice President at The James Irvine Foundation.

In this expanded leadership role, Don will assume oversight for all of the Foundation’s program and grantmaking activities and will also help to lead the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to deepen, extend and amplify our mission of service to the people of California. As I described in a July blog post, the Foundation is in the midst of a planning process aimed at refining our approach in order to maximize Irvine’s impact. Don will play a critical leadership role as we move these plans to execution and demonstrate the kind of nimble and adaptive strategies that will be essential to Irvine’s success in the years ahead. Given the many challenges facing California today, and our unique role as the largest multipurpose foundation dedicated exclusively to the state, Irvine will need to continue to embrace an ambitious agenda to advance the changes that our state desperately needs.

Don currently serves as a Partner and head of the San Francisco office for The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit strategy consulting firm helping other nonprofits and philanthropists achieve breakthrough results. Prior to joining Bridgespan, Don spent the first part of his career at Booz Allen Hamilton, an international management consulting firm. Don earned his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University, and his MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.