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.

Irvine’s Board of Directors approved $14.5 million in grants at its quarterly meeting last week. Of the 53 grants approved, 32 are in the Arts, three in California Democracy, four in our Youth program, 13 in Special Initiatives and one in Special Opportunities. I’d like to highlight some of the grants that we are excited about:

Exploring Engagement Fund – Our Arts program is supporting 19 arts organizations that are experimenting with new ways of engaging audiences and participants as part of our Exploring Engagement Fund. The goal of the new strategy is to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians — the kind that embraces and advances the diverse ways that we experience the arts and that strengthens our ability to thrive together in a dynamic and complex social environment.

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.

Irvine’s Board of Directors approved $16.9 million in grants at its quarterly meeting this week. Of the 31 grants approved, 10 are in the Arts, five in California Democracy, 14 in Youth, one in Special Initiatives, and one in Special Opportunities. I’d like to highlight some grants that we’re excited about:

Exploring Engagement Fund for Large Organizations – Our Arts program is supporting eight large-budget organizations to explore new ideas for engaging audiences as part of our Exploring Engagement Fund for Large Organizations. This is the second set of grants made under our new Arts program strategy (the first round of Exploring Engagement Fund grants was announced in June). The goal of the new strategy is to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians — the kind that embraces and advances the diverse ways that we experience the arts and that strengthens our ability to thrive together in a dynamic and complex social environment.

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.