The James Irvine Foundation Board of Directors approved five grants totaling $11 million last week. The Foundation also provided $6.98 million in grants this quarter that did not require board approval.  

The grants primarily support the Foundation’s four initiatives focused on working Californians: Better Careers, Fair Work, Just Prosperity, and Priority Communities. More information about all grants can be found in the Foundation’s database here, and the board-approved grants include:  

Better Careers  

Tides Center 

A three-year grant of $3 million to support the expansion of early care and education registered apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships in California through an entity such as Early Care and Education Pathways to Success.  

Fair Work 

National Employment Law Project 

A one-year grant of $1.14 million to support enforcement of workplace protections and to provide training and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations in California.  

Priority Communities  

Action Council of Monterey County, Inc. 

A two-year grant of $1.5 million to strengthen the Community Leadership and Power Building Committee’s ongoing power-building and inclusive economic efforts in the Monterey Bay Region (Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties).  

Ampac Tri-state CDC Inc 

A three-year grant of $2 million to provide capital and technical assistance to women and BIPOC-owned small businesses in the Inland Empire to narrow the racial wealth gap.  

UC Merced Community and Labor Center   

A two-year grant of $1.15 million to strengthen farmworkers’ worker rights knowledge, provide training and job placement, and to support the Futuros Campesinos Project by assessing and addressing the unmet needs of underemployed, undocumented farmworkers in Fresno.