One of the most fundamental values we hold at Irvine is to share what we’re learning. We want our colleagues — both nonprofits and other funders — to be able to apply the most promising ideas, approaches and strategies to their work – and to also avoid the ones that aren’t working. We will be putting this value into action at the upcoming Council on Foundations 2012 Fall Conference for Community Foundations.

We know that all community foundations want to grow assets and create positive changes in their communities, and Irvine will be hosting a special workshop to share strategies on how to make this happen. The workshop is built around the lessons and approaches developed over six years of intensive work to help a set of emerging community foundations in California become stronger leaders in their communities as part of our Community Foundations Initiative II. Between 2005 and 2011, this group grew their collective assets 12 percent annually (from $73 million to $131 million), compared to 7 percent for their peers nationwide. At the same time, they increased their grantmaking, awarding $4 million more in grants each and every year for projects in their communities.

We began sharing some of the lessons and tools from this work in 2007, with our Growing Smarter report, and over the years, we have hosted sold-out webinars and conference programs in partnership with the Council on Foundations to disseminate this knowledge to the field.

Building leadership is one of Irvine’s core values, and one of the ways we try to realize that value is through the Fund for Leadership Advancement. Started in 2005, the fund supports the development of individual leaders as a way to increase the impact of existing Irvine grantee organizations. Although the fund has been on hiatus while we conducted a program review, we are restarting this leadership development initiative and sharing what we’ve learned from our work in this area.

As we reached a critical mass of more than 50 FLA grants, we decided to take stock of FLA and consider updates that would insure that the program takes into account the economic and social circumstances our grantees currently face. In order to review the impact of FLA, we commissioned Harder+Company Community Research to conduct an external assessment of these grants and help us understand where and how FLA has had the greatest impact.

Earlier this month, I was part of an event in Napa County that shows why a creative and resourced community foundation is one of the most important assets a community can have. More than 150 civic leaders, business people, teachers and community members attended a gathering hosted by the Napa Valley Community Foundation to talk about immigration and look at a new report the community foundation commissioned that examines the fiscal and economic impact of immigrants in the region.

To most of us, Napa Valley brings to mind wine and tourism; and indeed, those are two of the most important industries in the county. But because the Irvine Foundation seeks to expand opportunity for disadvantaged Californians, I also think of changing demographics when I think of Napa County.

Napa will experience one of the most profound demographic shifts in the state over the next 40 years. The Latino population is estimated to grow from 23 percent to 70 percent of residents by 2050, and Napa will become the first county in the Bay Area to have a Latino majority. How the community handles these shifting demographics will be critical to the county’s economy and quality of life. Will the community welcome this increased diversity or will it become a source of division? Will public schools be able to close the achievement gap between Caucasian students and students of color, or will inequalities become exacerbated?

The Community Leadership Project is a $10 million investment, made collaboratively by Irvine and the Packard and Hewlett foundations, to support the effectiveness and impact of a set of small organizations that are deeply rooted in low-income communities and communities of color. The project began in 2009, and more than 100 community organizations in three regions of California – the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley –are involved in this effort to enhance important aspects of their organizations’ operations and leadership abilities.

We recently received a progress report from Social Policy Research Associates, the team that is evaluating the project’s results, and we are excited to share some of the accomplishments, challenges and surprises of the project.

The evaluation shows that CLP is successfully reaching organizations and individuals that are not typically on the philanthropy radar because of some combination of their small size, their finite capacity, or where they are located. Two years into the project, it is still too early to document specific outcomes, but the evaluators also share their viewpoint that CLP investments are making a difference for participating organizations in a host of ways. We are finding that:

As part of our Special Initiatives grantmaking, we fund research on occasion that can help us understand the trends and issues facing the nonprofit sector. After all, we can only accomplish our mission through the hard work of the nonprofit organizations that we partner with. Understanding the nonprofit environment helps us do a better job of aligning our grant support with their needs and opportunities.

A great example of Irvine-funded research along these lines was released on January 31 by the UCLA Center for Civil Society. Since 2003 the center has published annual reports on the state of the nonprofit sector in Los Angeles; this year’s report focused on how the recession is affecting  human service organizations. The report, Stressed and Stretched: The Recession, Poverty and Human Services Nonprofits in Los Angeles, shows how reduced revenues from government and individuals has caused nonprofits to do more with less at a time when the number of Angelenos in need of social services is growing. Nonprofits serving the lowest income neighborhoods, and those serving African Americans in particular, have been hardest hit.

Following are remarks made by Jim Canales, Irvine's President and CEO, at the Fresno Regional Foundation's 45th anniversary luncheon on Oct. 26, 2011. At the luncheon, the Fresno Regional Foundation announced plans to establish a new Fund for the San Joaquin Valley, using a $3 million grant from Irvine, to advance local giving and address critical issues in the region.

President John F. Kennedy had a plaque on his desk in the Oval Office. Inscribed on the front in brass were the words of an old fisherman’s prayer: Oh God thy sea is so great… and my boat is so small. That captures pretty well the thought of just about any foundation CEO. With seemingly infinite need and relatively finite resources, effective philanthropy can be a challenge. Moreover, when I look out at the problems swelling around California and then consider the scope of Irvine’s resources to do something about it… that sea looks quite vast, and the boat looks very small indeed.

I also find inspiration in the perspective of another “nautical” philosopher. In Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws”, when the character of Police Chief Martin Brody first sees the size and power of his foe… when he sees just how big that shark actually is... he kind of stumbles back a bit, but then recovers and calmly tells the scruffy captain: “You're gonna need a bigger boat.”

And that’s the spirit that we celebrate today. At the Fresno Regional Foundation, together we are building a bigger boat. Each of us plays a critical role as donor, supporter, advisor, champion or just a caring citizen who knows the value that a strong community delivers.

Dear Friends,

Last year, the philanthropic community was engaged in a vigorous debate about diversity and whether private foundations in California were investing sufficiently to support minority communities. This dialogue was prompted in large measure by a proposed California law which would have required large private foundations to collect and report race and ethnicity data about themselves and their grantees. Although Irvine and a broader coalition of private foundations opposed the bill for a number of reasons, the debate it generated identified some important underlying issues and, ultimately, led Irvine and others to take specific, constructive steps to address these issues. This quarter’s letter provides an update on our activities in this regard.

Most significantly, last year’s debate helped to surface a broad need to augment support to nonprofit organizations serving low-income people and communities of color across the state. The discussion also focused on the need for strong leaders and effective organizations in these communities. So, as an extension of our various efforts already dedicated toward this end, Irvine partnered with the Packard and Hewlett foundations to launch the Community Leadership Project, an $8 million commitment by our three foundations over a three year period. The focus of this collaboration is on strengthening organizations, building capacity and developing leadership in three regions of shared interest to our three foundations: the greater San Francisco Bay Area, the Central Coast and the San Joaquin Valley.

In June, our three foundations announced the first round of grants to nine intermediary organizations, totaling $5.7 million. The Community Leadership Project works through intermediary organizations, where possible tapping the expertise of community foundations because of their understanding of the needs of the targeted communities. During the summer, we requested letters of inquiry for a second round of grants. Not only did we receive a large number of applications, but the proposed ideas are creative and compelling, and the applicants have strong networks in the targeted regions. As a result, the three foundations have agreed to contribute an additional $1 million of funding to support some of these proposed projects, bringing the level of funding to $9 million. We expect to announce a new set of partners later this year.