Funding Areas
MAKING INVESTMENTS FOR THE LONG-TERM BENEFIT OF SANTA BARBARA
We recognize that there may be important projects that do not fall into our primary focus areas that can have a lasting beneficial impact for the Santa Barbara region. Consequently, we will participate, from time to time, in those efforts. In addition to looking for lasting impact, we are interested in projects that have broad participation from a variety of other funding sources, including local foundations and individuals. We view ourselves as secondary participants and our grants are likely to be modest. In general we do not support capital campaigns for organizations whose missions do not fall within our primary focus areas. Also, as a rule, we do not support events, or endowments.
Starting in 2020 and throughout 2021 we joined the rest of the community and the world in responding to COVID 19. We worked mostly through funding collaboratives to support needs as they emerged. Three of the five primary areas of funding were done in partnership with the United Way of Santa Barbara County as part of their COVID Response:
- The Essential Workforce Emergency Childcare Initiative
- The Public Health Critical Needs Fund
- Learning and Enrichment Centers
The fourth concerned meeting the needs of isolated seniors, was run by the Family Service Agency. The fifth related to meeting the needs of Latinx and Indigenous Migrant workers as described in this article in the Santa Barbara Independent.
We are hopeful that the medical crisis caused by COVID will recede in 2022. We will look to see if there are residual impacts, most likely in the area of mental health and wellness, to which a coordinated community response emerges that could benefit from philanthropic support.
Democracy: Also in 2020 we recognized that there are some issues that transcend the geographic boundary we use to define Community, and the health of our democracy is one of those. We made several grants to organizations working nationwide to support voter mobilization. We anticipate continuing this in 2022 and beyond.