Priority Communities

Our vision for this community-based grantmaking is an economy that works for all residents, with the goals of:

• Creating more good jobs that offer a family-sustaining wage, benefits, and opportunities for low-wage workers to advance economically
• Ensuring more low-wage workers obtain good jobs and the necessary training to land these positions
• Supporting effective, community-based approaches to increase the spread of good jobs
• Leveraging Irvine’s dollars to bring in more public, private, and philanthropic investments

We aim to achieve these goals by:

• Strengthening grassroots organizations that represent the voices of low-income residents in participating in and leading economic planning
• Supporting policymakers and local leaders to partner with low-income residents to develop inclusive economic plans that create good jobs (and reflect the needs of low-wage workers), including addressing the bias and barriers related to race/ethnicity, gender, immigration status, and more
• Investing in good job-creation strategies identified by inclusive planning, such as micro-enterprise, incentivizing employers’ expansion to the region, or spurring local innovation via matching angel investors

The model for this initiative

Partnering with regranting intermediaries — like community foundations — is core to implementing our Priority Communities initiative. We work with trusted, local partners who know the players and have designed solutions for their communities’ challenges. This approach allows us to quickly and strategically award larger grants to local organizations who are implementing key projects that benefit low-wage workers.

In 2018 and 2019, we piloted this approach to grantmaking in Fresno and Salinas.

As part of this effort, Irvine collaborated with the Central Valley Community Foundation, the Latino Community Foundation, and the Community Foundation for Monterey County to expand access to our grant dollars to grassroots organizations to strengthen their capacity to inform local issues and develop local leaders (individuals and organizations). We also helped increase access to quality information by supporting culturally competent, local media.

You can read a blog post from us about these early pilots, as well as one about listening we recently did in these regions.

Through Irvine’s grant dollars, we aim to achieve the following goals for the Priority Communities initiative:

Impact Goals

• 21,000 jobs created across five cities
• 4,500 workers trained by Better Careers grantees
• Irvine dollars catalyze five times the investment from public, private, and philanthropic sectors