California Wellness Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The California Wellness Foundation supports health equity, racial equity and social justice, working mainly in the state of California.
IP TAKE: For the California Wellness Foundation, a signatory of the GUTC Pledge, “wellness is more than health.” According to its belief statement, “[w]wellness touches upon the potential for healing that encompasses body, mind and spirit and honors the human desire for justice, equity and voice.” This funder gets positive reviews for being a “positive leader in the field” and accepts letters of inquiry for most of its grant programs at any time. Making hundreds of grants a year to organizations of every size in California and, to a lesser extent, other parts of the U.S., this is a good source of funding for social justice work that relates to health, justice and equity.
PROFILE: The California Wellness Foundation (CWF), a GUTC signatory, is a private, independent foundation that was established in 1992 with proceeds from the conversion of the insurer HealthNet from a nonprofit to for-profit company. The foundation’s mission is “to protect and improve the health and wellness of the people of California by increasing access to health care, quality education, good jobs, healthy environments and safe neighborhoods.” Its main grantmaking program, Advancing Wellness, runs subprograms for Community Well-Being, Equity in Access, Economic Security and Dignity and a racial justice program called Leading for Power and Change. Other areas of engagement include Women of Color Health Initiatives, Reproductive Justice and Disability Justice, although the foundation mainly participates in collaborative efforts for advocacy and research in these areas.
This funder’s grantmaking targets “direct services that address the urgent needs people are facing in their communities, particularly the needs of low-income individuals, people of color, youth and residents of rural areas.” Across all areas of engagement, however, CWF also supports “advocacy and civic engagement so that communities can build power and create public policies that reflect their vision, will and needs.”
Grants for Public Health and Access, Immigrants, Women and Girls
Public health is CWF’s largest giving area overall, with grants stemming mainly from its Equity in Access giving area. The program works “toward high-quality universal health care that expands the ability of all Californians, especially people of color, to obtain necessary health care and related services.” The program emphasizes racial health equity, the rights of immigrants and reproductive and sexual health care. Grants stem from three interrelated subprograms.
Grants for Universal Coverage and Access to Care work to improve access to health, mental health and oral health care for all Californians, with an emphasis on “people of color and immigrants.” Specifically, grants support:
Policy, research and the dissemination of information related to “expansion of coverage” to vulnerable and uninsured populations;
Education and outreach programs that help uninsured people enroll in insurance programs including Medi-Cal and Covered California;
Research aimed at “build[ing] the case for universal coverage”; and
Support for health clinics, including primary care clinics, specialty clinics, oral care providers and larger organizations that “support for community health centers and clinics.”
Grantees of this subprogram include Dientes Community Dental Care of Santa Cruz, the Health Access Foundation of Sacramento and the Tri-State Community Health Care Center’s San Bernardino operations.
Grantmaking for System Transformation focuses on efforts for “designing and implementing new models of health care that take a whole-person view” and “allocating resources and interventions to improve health and wellness for Black, Brown, and indigenous communities.” This subprogram’s areas of priority are:
New models of care, including initiatives that support the transition of “safety-net organizations transition to value-based care” and “approaches for providing holistic and healing centered care”;
Programs that “better connect individuals” to health and health-related services; and
Policy work to “increase investments” in health infrastructure.
Grants stemming from this subprogram have gone to organizations including the Alameda Point Collaborative, San Francisco’s Transitions Clinic Network and Los Angeles’s Care Message, which received a grant to improve its “patient engagement platform” for low-income patients in Los Angeles County.
Finally, grants for Priority Populations work to “overturn decades of injustice so that communities too long ignored receive both the health care and social services they need.” This subprogram works beyond the specific scope of healthcare to address:
Policy and advocacy for the rights of immigrants;
The protection of access to reproductive and sexual health services, “especially for women of color”; and
Initiatives that “create positive narratives about the role of immigrants in society.”
Past grantees include Essential Health Access and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.
In addition to the above grantmaking programs, CWF articulates a strong commitment to supporting Reproductive Justice and Disability Justice through grantmaking, advocacy, collaboration and communications. See program pages for additional information about the foundation’s engagements in these areas.
It is worth mentioning that an older program, CWF’s Women of Color Health Initiatives, invested heavily in women’s health over the past two decades:
The Re-Entry program supported programs, policy and advocacy related to education, career training and “asset building” for formerly incarcerated women color.
The HIV/AIDS/STIs Prevention Program worked in Los Angeles and Alameda through public awareness, behavioral health and biomedical interventions to “to help African American and Latinx women decrease their risk for contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.”
Grants for Racial Justice, Criminal Justice Reform, Violence Prevention and Environmental Causes
CWF’s Community Well-Being grantmaking area works to “provide resources that support the health, safety and resilience of communities of color, especially those that have been disproportionately affected by unhealthy environments and community violence” through three subprograms.
The Violence Prevention and Healing Justice subprogram envisions “communities experiencing less gun violence, decreases in community trauma, and higher levels of safety and resilience.” Grantmaking and engagement in this area acknowledges that “healing must be rooted in the culture and beliefs of the community, and respectful of both the individual’s and the community’s need to reconcile the harm that’s been done.” Areas of specific focus include:
The prevention of gun violence through efforts including “advocacy, community organizing, research, narrative change”;
Support for “Black and Latino-led” organizations that work to “reduce community violence and gun violence” via direct interventions;
Support for communities of color as they engage in efforts to “transform […] the current system of policing” and reconfigure community safety; and
The “healing and well-being of individuals and communities most impacted by trauma and community violence, particularly of communities of color.”
Grantees include the Community Justice Reform Coalition, the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention and the Flourish Agenda.
The subprogram for Youth Justice supports BIPOC-led organizations that work toward replacing current youth justice systems with “a systems that prioritizes youth and community development.” Grants focus on:
Policy and advocacy that moves away from punitive justice and toward systems of accountability and youth development;
Organizing, leadership development and skill-building programs for vulnerable and justice-involved youth;
Media and other representations “that frame […] youth who have been involved in the justice system as young people who deserve compassion, fairness, redemption, dignity, and greater investment”;
Justice research that is community- and youth-led; and
Efforts to “strategically align impact litigation” with other efforts to advance youth justice reform.
This subprogram’s grants have gone to organizations including the Center for Young Women’s Development, the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, among others.
The Community Environments subprogram makes grants to organizations and initiatives that “support communities of color to actively engage and build power over the environmental policies and conditions that affect the places in which they live, work and play.” This subprogram names three areas of focus:
Advocacy and policy development for equitable access and outcomes with regard to drinking water, clean air and land use;
Initiatives that “increase the power of communities of color” to lead, organize and make decisions about environmental issues affecting their communities; and
Organizing and engagement for “new or improved parks and open spaces in underserved communities.”
Environmental grants have supported the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust and the Kounkuey Design Initiative, which received funding “to provide outreach, education, and technical assistance to underserved cities in California seeking funding for neighborhood parks to improve health outcomes.”
Grants for Work, Opportunity and Higher Education
Grantmaking for Economic Security and Dignity works broadly to “advance the economic well-being of Californians, especially those from low-income communities and communities of color.” This program takes a “strengthen the floor and eliminate the ceiling” approach, simultaneously working to strengthen safety net measures and increase access to higher education and careers. This program makes grants in three areas.
Economic Mobility and Wealth Creation supports initiatives for for underserved and vulnerable populations, especially formerly-incarcerated women in the following areas:
Workforce development programs, including job placement and retention supports, for formerly incarcerated people, immigrants and low-income people of color;
Support services and “access to trustworthy capital” for small business owners of underrepresented backgrounds; and
Policy to support workforce and small business development, especially in BIPOC communities.
Grants from this subprogram have gone to Prospera Community Development, the UCLA Labor Center and Small Business Majority, a national organization that has helped small businesses in California and elsewhere obtain “access to capital, affordable health care and other entrepreneurial and workforce benefits.
Grants for Post Secondary Education and Health Professions Training support programs that “young people can graduate with degrees and certifications that pave the way to greater long-term economic success.” Grantmaking from this program prioritizes “underrepresented racial minorities.” Areas of focus include:
“Campus-based support programs” that support student success in postsecondary programs;
Programs for health professions that “improve the admission and success of underrepresented students of color”;
The development of public policy that supports innovations for success and eliminates barriers to educational programs related to health professions; and
Leadership development for postsecondary and health professions education.
Grantees include Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science, the Los Rios Community College District and Oakland’s First Place for Youth, which helps career and educational programming for foster youth.
The third subprogram makes grants to strengthen the Economic Safety Net, focusing on:
Policy to increase worker pay, benefits and to expand access to income supports like CalEITC, CalFresh and CalSavers; and
Safety net innovations, mainly in the area of guaranteed income and similar programs.
Safety net grantees include the Golden State Opportunity Foundation, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and the Center on Policy Initiatives.
Grants for Racial Justice and Philanthropy
The aim of CWF’s newer Leading for Power and Change program is “to amplify the voices, leadership, and power of people of color, and other people who have historically been excluded from full participation in civic society.” Still in its earliest stages, this program will pursue “systemic and progressive change” broadly, it also pays heed to related issues of community health outcomes. Grantmaking will support three areas of focus.
Equity in the Nonprofit Sector refers to the foundation’s grantmaking for “leadership development and capacity building that will help people of color-led organizations, and organizations with a racial justice analysis, to be stronger and more resilient.” Grants from this subprogram fund:
Initiatives for “the recruitment, development and retention of non-profit leaders of color in the social justice movement”;
Organizations that support BIPOC-led groups with capacity and infrastructure development; and
Efforts to “evolve philanthropy’s policies and practices” toward equity and inclusion of people and communities of color.
The Mobilizing Movements and Powerbuilding subprogram works to ensure that “organizations have the resources to mobilize, advance health and racial equity, and hold public and private sector leaders and policymakers accountable.” It provides:
Grants to build the capacity of organizations to “recruit and train communities most impacted by systemic racism to lead advocacy, community/ youth organizing and civic engagement efforts”;
Grants for collaborations and coalitions of organizations working to strengthen the racial justice movement; and
Grants for communications related to “the voices and experiences of communities most impacted by systemic racism.”
A third subprogram, Reimagining Social Justice, will aim to “to increase the inclusion of communities of color in fields that influence decision making in philanthropy and the sustainability and effectiveness of non-profit organizations including, finance, research and communications.” This program has yet to name specific goals or priorities.
Other Opportunities
In 2020, CWF’s board of directors “approved investing all of our endowment in alignment with our mission and vision.” As a result, the foundation now makes mission-related and program-related investments to “complement our grantmaking and reflect our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.” For information about the funds and institutions in which the foundation has so far invested, see the program page.
Important Grant Details:
CWF’s grants range from $100 to $1.25 million, although most grants remain under $500,000.
This funder makes hundreds of grants each year to organizations of every size, a majority of which operate in the state of California.
A strong commitment to racial equity and social justice underlines all of CWF’s work.
Health equity is CWF’s largest area of giving, but it also supports a broad range of health and social justice initiatives.
To apply, see the foundation’s letter of interest guidelines and complete the related letter of interest form, which may be submitted via the website. Letters are accepted at any time, but the foundation is not currently accepting letters for its Community Well-Being grants.
For additional information about past grantmaking, see the foundation’s grants database.
Questions about the application process may be submitted to the foundation at grants@callwellness.org. For general inquiries, the foundation may be reached by telephone at (818) 702-1900.
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