Taking It to the Streets: California Endowment President Joins L.A. Protests, Doubles Payout

Less than a year into her tenure as president of the California Endowment, a grant maker focused on health and racial equity, Brenda Solórzano finds herself marching in the streets of Los Angeles.

This week, Solórzano joined thousands of people protesting the surge in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids targeting undocumented residents of the city. As the protests continued, and the Trump administration sent in units of the National Guard and the U.S. Marines, Solórzano made frequent visits to the demonstrations from the endowment’s nearby Los Angeles headquarters.

In addition to making herself a presence on the street, Solórzano worked with her board to put more money into the hands of grantees targeted by the immigration raids and impacted by cutbacks in federal support. The endowment, which has about $4 billion in assets, doubled its payout to 10 percent in May, which will result in $160 million in additional grants in each of the next three years.

Solórzano, an early proponent of trust-based philanthropy, which seeks to make it easier for nonprofits to obtain grants without a lot restrictions, spoke with the Chronicle about the California Endowment’s recent decisions and the danger and complexity of this political moment.

Her remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.

How would you assess the situation in Los Angeles? Who is protesting and what is their message?

I’ve been there three days this week. The people protesting are Californians, young people in particular, who have the privilege to be on the street right now, to be able to stand up for the communities that right now are being terrorized.

Almost everybody in California has a connection to somebody who’s an immigrant. What they’re saying is, Please don’t terrorize us. Please don’t frighten us. Please don’t create trauma for us. Because that’s what is happening as people are being picked up and taken away without due process. Even our elected officials are not being allowed into these detention centers. And that’s very un-American.

They’re kids like me. I grew up as an immigrant kid in California. And they are kids whose parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins are terrified. And it’s not just the undocumented that are terrified; it’s anybody who looks like they could potentially be a target. I was at a gathering this weekend of women leaders in L.A. Several of them are walking around with their passports because they’re afraid that they’re going to get picked up.

Much of the country sees the protests as a disturbing, violent response to immigration control. Did things get out of hand?

It’s an unfair characterization of what’s actually happening in L.A. There’s a narrative that L.A. is in chaos and being destroyed. The protest is happening in a one-square-mile area of downtown. You could go to Disneyland, you can go to Hollywood, you could go to almost any community right now and it’s life as normal.

So the sense that there’s this lawlessness and this craziness happening in L.A. is not actually accurate. There was a prayer vigil last night that was led by several priests and pastors of different congregations. It was a gathering of storytelling that created a sense of belonging. It included singing, praying, and then peacefully walking down to the detention center in L.A. That wasn’t covered on the news. Instead, they keep showing pictures of four burning cars.

Why was it important for you to attend the protests?

At the endowment, we stand for health for all. But when you are creating traumatic situations, when you are creating fear, you’re detrimentally impacting the health and well-being of children and families that are going to have repercussions for a long time. We’re trying to tell the true story of what’s actually happening. We’re going to stand by our grantees. These are nonprofits. They’re not vigilantes.

You’ve been a proponent of trust-based philanthropy. Are there additional changes related to that approach you will make at the endowment as a result of the unrest?

This is not business as usual for us. We are asking ourselves if we can fund more quickly and turn around grants in a day. We may be funding differently by looking at different structures that allow us to move the money more quickly.

Does that include putting more money into donor-advised funds?

It could be donor-advised funds. It could be shifting from what we traditionally do in philanthropy, which is we make a grant, which in essence is a contract, to actually giving money as a gift, which wouldn’t require us to actually have a contract agreement. It could be looking at other types of partnerships with organizations that could help deploy money quicker than we can.

In Los Angeles, have the California Endowment’s offices been open this week?

We are about three or four blocks away from the epicenter, which is why I have been able to go to the protests. On Monday, our hearts sank when we saw the Marine tanks rolling right on our street toward downtown. I’ve never felt such fear, sadness, and disappointment.

We have asked people out of the L.A. office to work remotely this week, more out of an abundance of caution than anything else. We have encouraged people to exercise their First Amendment rights, but we don’t tell people what to do and not to do.

As the protests unfolded, a U.S. House subcommittee called for a probe of California nonprofits that assist immigrants. Is the state being singled out?

It feels like what is happening in L.A. is an intentional targeting of communities for political purposes. It is hurtful to see the way that our grantees and our communities are being portrayed. I’d invite anybody to come out to California and come meet some of these organizations, meet the people who they’re working with. They’re parents, they’re workers, they’re servers. They clean our hotels. They take care of our children. These are not criminals.

There’s a desire to make California an example. We’re a state that is diverse. Fifty percent of the kids in California have an immigrant parent. If we no longer have the freedoms that we are supposed to have as Americans under the Constitution, if we don’t have the ability to give to people who are doing good work to help their neighbors and their community, and if we no longer have the ability to go out and protest, then our country is changing fundamentally.

How will the California Endowment direct its additional grant money?

To different types of support, whether it’s spaces for healing, for legal support, and for grants to help groups to tell the true story of what’s actually happening so that we fight the false narrative that is being put out there. Also, as a health funder, we are really concerned about the cuts coming to Medicaid, SNAP, and other safety-net health and social services. There’s an element of the upspend that’s going to be directed toward that.

How did you persuade your board to double payout to 10 percent?

Every board I’ve worked has been nervous about increasing spending for fear of negatively impacting perpetuity. What I pitched to the board is that they have two competing responsibilities. On one side, they have the fiduciary responsibility to ensure perpetuity, which means that you want to make money. There is also a duty of loyalty to mission. If you’re going to achieve your mission, it requires you to spend money, and in this moment it requires you to spend more.

In philanthropy, we don’t talk about what perpetuity is. Today we’re a $4 billion foundation. Does perpetuity mean perpetuity at $1 billion? At $4 billion?

President Trump has targeted large foundations like the Endowment in his DEI executive orders. Have you changed any of your work in response?

We haven’t changed anything. We continue to be committed to our mission. Our job is to ensure health for all, and we cannot get there until we address the systemic inequities that keep people from being able to achieve healthy lives.

I think the challenge for philanthropy is that the laws are evolving every day. We’re hearing now that if you harbor an undocumented person, that’s illegal and somehow you might suffer some consequences. Well, what does it mean to harbor an undocumented person? If you’re a funder, does that mean if you give a grant to an organization helping an undocumented family, that’s somehow now in violation of law? I think all of this is murky.