Our Board of Directors approved $3.2 million in grants at its quarterly meeting last week. Of the 10 approved grants, one is in the Arts, six in California Democracy, two in our Youth program, and one in Special Initiatives. I’d like to highlight some of the grants that we are excited about:

MapLight — Our California Democracy program is supporting MapLight with a $400,000 grant to produce a comprehensive online voter guide, Voter’s Edge, with information through 2014 about state legislative candidates and state and local ballot measures. Voter’s Edge will include daily updates about state ballot measures, including arguments for and against each measure, lists of endorsers, links to commercials and media coverage and data about campaign contributions. MapLight plans to expand its site to provide such information about ballot issues in 50 California cities and counties, and also will provide nonpartisan information about candidates for state legislative and constitutional offices.

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By Doug Chapin – Director, Future of California Elections

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Sunny San Diego provided a beautiful backdrop last month for the summer meeting of the California Association of County Clerks and Elections Officials (CACEO), at which members of the Irvine-sponsored Future of California Elections (FoCE) project presented their work to date. The group, comprised of county registrars, civil rights leaders and advocates for effective government, has been collaborating since late 2011 to improve the effectiveness of California elections and increase voter participation. Together FoCE participants established several goals they seek to accomplish in 2012, and the conference provided an opportunity to check in mid-course on their progress.

The results of FoCE participants’ hard work is already quite notable and indicates the exciting potential of this group. For example, based on focus groups FoCE participants conducted with voters and additional research and analysis, FoCE recommended 10 changes to the state voter guide. The Secretary of State welcomed all 10 recommendations and expects to adopt them for the November 2012 guide. FoCE members have also contributed to implementation of the state’s new online voter registration system, resulting in the state’s three major public assistance programs (CalWORKS, CalFresh and Medi-Cal) and two dozen colleges and universities – and counting— agreeing to integrate voter registration into their online applications and websites. More details about the group’s accomplishments to date and plans for the remainder of 2012 are listed below.

One of the highlights of the CACEO conference was hearing FoCE participants describe this unusual partnership. During a panel presentation, Cathy Darling Allen, incoming CACEO President and Clerk/Registrar of Shasta County, light-heartedly shared her initial trepidation of working with FoCE members from the American Civil Liberties Union, Verified Voting, Common Cause and the California Voter Foundation: “For a registrar, these are a bunch of scary women!” Everyone on the panel noted similar initial concerns about working with past adversaries, and expressed pride that just nine months later, they are all working together as close colleagues, advancing shared goals.

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On June 5, the Aspen Institute featured Irvine CEO Jim Canales as part of their Foundation Presidents’ Series of roundtable discussions. The luncheon was hosted by the Aspen Institute’s Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation, which seeks to maximize the impact of the social sector by encouraging collaboration between grantmakers, nonprofits and social enterprises. The Institute hosted Jim in their Washington office for a discussion with over 40 nonprofit leaders and policy experts. In discussion with the Aspen Institute’s Jane Wales, Jim covered some of the key trends and developments in philanthropy. The discussion covered performance assessment, transparency and developments in Irvine’s grantmaking programs. The full 90-minute discussion can be viewed below.

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California has the largest, most diverse electorate of any state in the nation. Yet our voting population does not mirror that diversity, and California ranks near the bottom nationally in the percentage of eligible citizens actually registered to vote. As part of Irvine’s California Democracy program, we support efforts to expand election policies and practices that result in more Californians, across demographic groups, participating in elections.

Late last year, Irvine brought together a diverse group of organizations and individuals to develop a vision for the future of the state’s elections. This group included election officials, civic organizations, advocates and experts on elections policies and practices — all of whom care deeply about strengthening California’s democracy. Over three months, the group met to discuss the challenges and opportunities for reforms in various aspects of the voting and elections process, as well as the roles each group might play in advancing those reforms.

In December, the group released a Roadmap for the Future of California Elections laying out its vision for modernizing and improving the state’s election systems. The Roadmap included the following set of 10 guiding principles, which were unanimously endorsed by all group members:

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2011 is already shaping up as a promising year for efforts to reform California government. Voters, fed up with California's chronic budget crisis, demonstrated their eagerness to address the dysfunction by passing a set of substantive budget changes in the November election. And a new governor arrived in Sacramento pledging to shift governmental decision making "closer to the people."

Few organizations are better poised to harness this growing momentum for reform than California Forward, a broad-based, bipartisan group whose mission is to modernize the tools of government in California. Since its founding in 2008, California Forward has played a collaborative role in reforming the state's redistricting system and primary elections, while also framing much of the legislative debate around budget and fiscal reforms.

Now California Forward is launching its most ambitious effort to date — reaching out to local and regional leaders statewide and working with them to develop the details of policies that would restructure the relationship between state and local governments. In the process, it will be expanding the already substantial, broad-based coalition it has built to support these reforms through passage in the Legislature or at the ballot box.

Five of California's largest foundations, including Irvine, recently reaffirmed their commitment to California Forward and its reform efforts, pledging a total of $15 million over the next four years. The foundations continue to believe that without systemic improvements to state governance, progress in the areas they care about, whether it's education, health care, environment or another issue, will be harder to achieve.

To learn more, Irvine Quarterly recently talked with Jim Mayer, California Forward's executive director, about the organization's bipartisan approach, the successes to date and the opportunities ahead.

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Dear Friends, The New Year always brings with it a sense of renewal and possibility for the future. And while it may be hard to muster a sense of optimism about the fiscal challenges that face California, there is plenty of evidence that 2011 presents an opportunity to make progress toward the kind of long-term, structural reforms that will begin to address our state's chronic fiscal and budgetary challenges. Toward this end, Irvine and four other major California foundations recently renewed our commitment to California Forward, the bipartisan reform effort our foundations helped establish in 2008 to seek long-term solutions to the state's underlying governance problems. As a group of funders, we continue to believe that without the kind of systemic reform that California Forward is pursuing, the outcomes our foundations care about — whether in education, health care, the environment or economic development — become more elusive. Since its founding, California Forward has advanced the cause of governance reform through its contributions to the passage and implementation of Proposition 11, the redistricting initiative, and in helping to frame the legislative debate around budget and fiscal reform. In its first three years, California Forward has established itself as a respected, bipartisan entity, and it is now launching a broad public outreach campaign aimed at informing policy development and building the coalitions that will help to push additional reforms forward.

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In November, California voters approved an overhaul of the state’s redistricting system, the once-a-decade process of drawing the boundaries of state lawmakers’ electoral districts.

Historically, state legislators had been in charge of the redistricting process, drawing the district boundaries in which they and others would run. The passage of Proposition 11 places that district-drawing power in the hands of a 14-member Citizens Redistricting Commission, chosen from a pool of citizen applicants with a history of regular voting.

“The main issue going forward is getting people to apply to the commission who are from all walks of life, who are representative of California, and who can bring their views to the commission.” – Robert M. Stern, President of the Center for Governmental Studies

Many experts agree that if the new redistricting system is to succeed, it will require a broad-based pool of applicants to the new commission that reflects the state’s diversity, as well as broad public participation to inform the commission’s plans.

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Five years after creating its California Perspectives program, the James Irvine Foundation recently conducted a systematic re-examination of its grantmaking in this area.

The goal was to understand how we could focus our grantmaking for greater impact, based on what we had learned over the previous five years and considering changes in the political and policy environment. As part of this re-examination, our program staff engaged in a series of discussions with our board, grantees and leaders in communities across the state.

The result of this process, announced in May, is a modified program design and a new program name — California Democracy. The program’s essential mission has not changed; it is still focused on advancing effective public policy decision making that is reflective of and responsive to all Californians. And the new name is simply a better description of the grantmaking that we had already been doing.

Irvine’s grantmaking under the California Democracy program will focus on two major areas: Governance Reform and Civic Engagement. And within these areas, we’ve targeted our grantmaking in ways that we think take best advantage of our resources and opportunities and will make the greatest difference for the people of California.

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San Francisco — The Board of Directors of The James Irvine Foundation has approved 11 grants totaling more than $11 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.)

Of the $11 million, Irvine will make its largest ever grant with $7.5 million to ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career. A $400,000 Arts program grant will fund Dance/USA for an audience-engagement initiative. Additionally, two grants in the California Perspectives program provide a total of $850,000 to the Common Cause Education Fund and Working Partnerships USA to support electoral and budgetary reforms.

Advancing Multiple Pathways Programs

Irvine's Youth program seeks to increase the number of low-income youth in California who complete high school on time and attain a postsecondary credential by the age of 25. Grants approved as part of Irvine's Youth program include its largest ever grant of $7.5 million to ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career, to increase the availability of high-quality multiple pathways programs. ConnectEd was established in 2006 with a $6 million grant from Irvine. ConnectEd is a hub for innovative practice, policy and research to expand the number of education pathways that prepare students for college and career.

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Dear Friends, As the global economic crisis continues to unfold, California faces ever greater fiscal challenges. To fill a budget deficit of more than $40 billion, lawmakers are contemplating cuts, such as a shorter school year, that once might have been unthinkable. Moreover, as is often the case with budget cuts, the contemplated reductions in services threaten disproportionately the very populations at the heart of the Irvine Foundation's mission: low-income and underserved Californians. If nothing else, what this recent round of budgetary wrangling makes very clear is that we not only need to address the deficit in the short term, but we also need long-term, fundamental restructuring of California's budgetary system and fiscal policies. It is for this reason that Irvine, along with four other major California foundations, invested together more than $15 million last year to create California Forward, a bipartisan reform effort established to seek long-term solutions to the state's underlying structural problems, including its chronic financial woes. The current crisis offers a unique opportunity for reaching bipartisan accord on significant reforms. Recently, California Forward began working with lawmakers and other leaders on a set of reforms that would result in smarter fiscal decisions and greater public trust. California Forward not only illustrates the value of philanthropic collaboration — likely to become even more important in an era of diminished resources — but it also underscores for its funders that, without systemic reform of this kind, the outcomes our foundations care about — whether in education, health care, the environment or economic development — become more elusive.

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Every year, think tanks and blue ribbon task forces issue reports on various aspects of California's government in which pages of discouraging words eventually lead to the same question: How can California more effectively address the critical issues facing our state?

From left and right, political observers lament declining public services, chronic fiscal problems and a public perception that government is remote and ineffective. Californians see a Legislature paralyzed by political partisanship, unable to make progress on critical issues such as health care and education.

"What is needed is a persistent, creative, long-term effort to change the governance of California, and do it in a very public way." – James P. Mayer, California Forward's Executive Director

But tempting though it is, it won't do to lay all the blame on politicians. Study after study has concluded that even the best of them are stymied by underlying electoral, fiscal and management problems with California's governing system.

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As Congress debated sweeping immigration reform this spring, more than a million people took to the streets in demonstrations from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. Clearly, the extraordinary turnout reflects strong concerns by immigrants and others about the tone of the debate in Washington.

But to get a deeper understanding of the views of immigrants, one had to go beyond the placards and protest chants. Many policymakers and journalists turned to the results of a well-timed poll, released in late March by New America Media, the first major survey of the very communities that would be most affected by policies under consideration.

"The poll gave immigrants the first chance to participate in the debate rather than be targets of the debate," says Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media.

The poll's findings helped explain immigrants' hostility to the main provisions of the bill passed late last year by the House of Representatives, the harshest of the reforms under consideration, but it also revealed that neither political party gets very high marks on immigration issues.

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"Nobody wakes up every morning worrying about what legislative district they're in," says Bob Stern, President of the Center for Center for Governmental Studies (CGS). At the same time, anyone familiar with the mapping of legislative districts will attest to its fundamental impact on decision-making in our state Capitol.

With California voters likely being called upon to vote on reforms as early as this fall, Irvine Quarterly spoke with two representative grantees of Irvine's California Perspectives program to illuminate some of the key issues involved, and how their work is informing the discussion in Sacramento.

Bob Stern and Dr. Bruce Cain

Bob Stern has served as General Counsel of CGS since its founding in 1983, and was named its President in 2000. Stern has co-authored a number of CGS reports in the areas of campaign financing, the initiative process, and electronic filing of disclosure statements. He also served as General Counsel of the California Fair Political Practices Commission for nine years, and has authored a number of statewide initiatives enacted by Californians, including the Political Reform Act of 1974. He is joined in the interview below by Jeannie Wilkinson, CGS Project Manager for California Governance, who co-authored CGS's report, Drawing Lines: A Public Interest Guide to Real Redistricting Reform.

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Statewide budget choices have a direct connection to the economic prospects and quality of life for all Californians, and especially for low- and moderate-income residents. Yet budget deliberations have become a closed and highly technical set of negotiations from which the public is largely excluded.

Californians, generally, appear to have little understanding of how federal, state, and local budget and economic issues and choices are related, along with an inadequate understanding of where State money is spent, and how local governments and school districts are funded. Moreover, there appears to be little understanding of where the leverage points are in economic and budget policy for improving the economic prospects for low- and moderate-income residents.

For example, nearly all economists agree that federal employment policies have the most impact on the wages and employment status of low-wage workers, yet this connection is often ignored in the ongoing debate about how to improve the economic prospects for low- and moderate-income residents. Since full employment policies benefit most residents through raising incomes and spending, greater focus on this connection could help build consensus across party and ideological lines.

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