January 15, 2009 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Nine wealthy California foundations have promised to distribute at least $30-million during the next two to three years to aid needy members of minority groups.
The new grant-making effort was put together in response to pressure from state lawmakers, who drafted legislation last year that would have required foundations to disclose information about their giving to assist minorities.
The $30-million pledge, however, did not quell critics who argue that the grant makers fail to provide adequate assistance to blacks, Hispanics, and others.
The group of philanthropies, known as the Foundation Coalition, said that $20-million will support charities led by members of minority groups and other small nonprofit groups that serve poor neighborhoods and areas with diverse populations, according to a report the coalition released last month.
An additional $10-million will pay for training to help minority and grass-roots groups improve their management and leadership skills.
The charitable funds will also continue to give research grants to study the operations of minority nonprofit groups in California.
‘A Good Start’
The members of the coalition, which includes some of the wealthiest grant makers in the country, are the Ahmanson Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the California Endowment, the California Wellness Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the UniHealth Foundation, and the Weingart Foundation.
Orson Aguilar, executive director of the Greenlining Institute, an advocacy group in Berkeley, Calif., that has pushed foundations to do more for minorities in need, said the $30-million was “a good start.”
He said Greenlining would use the coalition’s example to persuade other grant makers, especially corporations, to do more for Hispanics and others. “They created a model that foundations can emulate elsewhere.”
However, he said that the Foundation Coalition overall fell short by not making a long-term commitment to supporting minority nonprofit leaders and because its members do not seem to have adopted major internal changes to be responsive to Greenlining’s concerns.
“It’s hard to tell what some of them are doing,” he said. “It requires more clarification.”
The Foundation Coalition originally banded together in February to fight a controversial proposal in the California State Legislature.
The bill, which Greenling supported, would have required grant makers to disclose to the public information about the diversity of their staff and board members and their grantees.
The author of the measure, Assemblyman Joe Coto, a Democrat from San Jose, agreed to withdraw it in June after the foundations promised to develop a plan to strengthen minority-led and grass-roots groups. The commitments announced last month are the result of that agreement.
Gathering Input
To develop the new programs, the grant makers spent five months talking with nonprofit leaders who are members of minority groups to see what they thought would best improve their organizations — and the relationship between minority-group grant seekers and foundations — said Fred Ali, chief executive of Weingart, in a letter that accompanied last month’s report.
“While each of our foundations was already providing substantial funding in these areas, we agreed more could, and should, be done,” he writes.
He also said that despite heavy losses in their investment portfolios, the coalition’s members “have kept faith” with their pledge to help minorities.
The 28-page report is available on Weingart’s Web site, under “Strengthening Grassroots Organizations.”
