SAN FRANCISCO (December 17, 2020) – The James Irvine Foundation Board of Directors approved nine grants totaling $5.8 million this week. The grants include support for the Foundation’s three initiatives (Fair Work, Better Careers, and Priority Communities), including two grants focused on providing support for low-income, undocumented Salinas residents and families who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Six of the grants focus on Black-led job creation, small business, wealth building, and capacity-building strategies, which come from an 18-month, $20 million commitment by the Foundation to support efforts to end anti-Black racism and advance racial equity in economic opportunity in California.

Those include:

Crenshaw Subway Coalition

A one-year grant of $110,000, through an entity such as Liberty Community Land Trust, to create housing opportunities in Southwest Los Angeles for Black communities who have faced economic barriers and been priced out of their neighborhoods.

Destination Crenshaw

A one-year grant of $400,000 to create greater economic security and entrepreneurship opportunities for Black residents of South Los Angeles.

Fresno Community Development Financial Institution (now Access Plus Capital)

A two-year grant of $500,000 to strengthen the capacity and the leadership of the organization, known as Access Plus Capital, to serve entrepreneurs of color in the Central Valley. (This is part of Irvine’s Priority Communities initiative.)

Inland Empire Community Foundation

A two-year grant of $1 million to support the Inland Empire Black Equity Fund, a pooled fund to resource and build the organizational capacity of Black-led and Black-empowering organizations in the Inland Empire, through an entity such as the Black Equity Initiative. (This is part of Irvine’s Priority Communities initiative.)

Local Initiatives Support Corporation

A two-year grant of $400,000 to support opportunities for low-income Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to participate in the economic growth of the Los Angeles region and build wealth within their communities.

Peralta Colleges Foundation

A one-year, $110,000 grant to support Black and Latino entrepreneurs gain the competence, confidence, and capital needed to establish and grow successful small businesses in East Oakland, through an entity such as East Side Oakland Ventures.

The board also approved the following grants:

Better Careers

Riverside Community College District Foundation

A two-year grant of $1.5 million to support the next phase of growth and expansion of the LAUNCH Apprenticeship Network’s regional apprenticeship model in the Inland Empire.

Fair Work       

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

A one-year grant of $550,000 to support a Public Health Councils program to curb the spread of COVID-19 in workplaces across Los Angeles County.

Organizational Research Services, Inc.

A two-year grant of $725,000 to support learning on the engagement and mobilization of workers earning low incomes in California, including grantees of Irvine’s Fair Work initiative.

Priority Communities

Action Council of Monterey County, Inc.

A one-year grant of $375,000 to support low-income, undocumented, and formerly incarcerated residents and families that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic with direct cash assistance in the Salinas Valley.

UFW Foundation

A one-year grant of $375,000 to provide direct cash assistance to Salinas farmworkers impacted by COVID-19 and to implement digital communications strategies to assess the needs of Salinas farmworkers.