Lasting change begins with communities. Across Southern California, people are organizing, preserving culture, rebuilding neighborhoods, and creating new pathways for opportunity. Our latest round of grantmaking invests $9.4 million in nonprofit partners strengthening the conditions communities need not only to respond to today’s challenges, but to shape their own future.

“This moment calls for innovative approaches rooted in partnership, trust, and a belief that communities hold the solutions to our most urgent challenges,” said Joanna S. Jackson, President and C.E.O. “Our role is to listen, learn, and invest alongside community leaders as they shape a future where every person belongs, every community has the opportunity to thrive, and everyone can share in a more just and prosperous future.”

Recovery Rooted in Community Ownership

This docket reflects the Weingart Foundation’s integrated approach to the long-term recovery of Altadena following the Eaton Fire. Through $2.25 million in grants and an additional $5 million in program-related investments, we are using every tool at our disposal to strengthen community ownership, deepen pathways to long-term economic recovery, and support an ecosystem of organizations advancing three interconnected priorities: resident stabilization, grassroots power building, and shared prosperity. Together, these investments help ensure recovery is not only informed by community, but shaped and led by community.

Each organization plays a distinct role in that ecosystem. Legacy Land Project helps stabilize residents by addressing both immediate and often overlooked barriers to recovery through comprehensive, people-centered support. Its work focuses on preventing displacement, protecting families from exploitation, preserving generational homes, and connecting residents to trusted partnerships and wraparound services. Pacific Community Ventures is helping drive long-term economic recovery by expanding access to affordable capital, business advising, and technical assistance for small business owners rebuilding after the Eaton Fire. Through its Restore LA Fund and partnership with the Los Angeles Urban League, the organization is helping entrepreneurs, particularly Black-owned businesses in West Altadena, overcome barriers to financing, prevent displacement, revitalize neighborhood businesses, and strengthen the local economy. Altadena Earthseed Community Land Trust is helping advance long-term community ownership by building the capacity to preserve affordability and prevent displacement, with a strategy focused on keeping land in community hands as Altadena rebuilds.

“Recovery is strongest when local entrepreneurs have the resources and power to lead it,” said Bulbl Gupta, President and C.E.O., Pacific Community Ventures. “Weingart’s partnership allows Pacific Community Ventures to support Altadena’s small businesses and those impacted by the Eaton Fire, with the capital and high-touch expertise they need to restore opportunity, advance economic growth, counter further displacement, and help chart a path toward a stronger, more resilient Los Angeles community.”

Reclaiming Voice, Culture, and Community

Advancing justice requires changing the stories that shape how we understand our history, one another, and what is possible. This docket invests in organizations working to strengthen narrative power by reclaiming histories that have too often been erased, preserving cultural memory, elevating lived experience, and expanding whose voices shape our collective future.

Through support of organizations such as Black Land Loss Narrative Project and Pop Culture Collaborative, Weingart Foundation is investing in complementary approaches that build on one another. The Black Land Loss Narrative Project documents and preserves the histories of Black land ownership, displacement, and resilience, ensuring these stories remain visible and inform future generations. Pop Culture Collaborative works alongside artists, organizers, cultural strategists, and philanthropy to reshape cultural narratives that advance racial and social justice and build the narrative power needed for a thriving multiracial democracy. Together, these investments recognize that lasting change depends not only on shifting systems, but also on transforming the stories that shape culture, belonging, and our collective imagination.

“With Weingart Foundation’s support, the Pop Culture Collaborative is able to invest in the people, projects, and infrastructure that build narrative power at scale, including supporting cultural leaders and storytellers who are shaping national conversations and inspiring social action to advance race, gender, disability, and immigrant justice and belonging,” said Bridgit Antoinette Evans, C.E.O., Pop Culture Collaborative. “Together, we are supercharging strategies and ecosystems that reach millions of people and expand whose stories and experiences are centered in mainstream culture. By strengthening the field and helping them coordinate around a shared vision of a more just and pluralist America, Weingart is investing in the cultural conditions needed for multiracial democracy and collective thriving.”

Seeding New Leadership and Expanding Opportunity

Advancing justice requires long-term investment in emerging leaders and movement-building ecosystems driving grassroots solutions. Forty-three percent of organizations funded this cycle are first-time grantees, reflecting our commitment to seeding new leadership, expanding our reach, and supporting emerging organizations rooted in the communities they serve. Investments in organizations such as Bold Vision, Dynasty United Youth Association, and Educating Students reflect our commitment to cultivating the next generation of leaders and strengthening the relationships and infrastructure needed to create lasting impact.

Together, these investments reflect our belief that justice is about more than responding to crisis. It is about ensuring people have the power, relationships, and resources to remain rooted, shape their futures, and flourish.

To learn more about the organizations supported through our latest round of funding, click here.

As our nation marks its 250th anniversary, we have an opportunity to reflect not only on our history, but also on the future we want to build together.

This milestone invites us to recognize the people who have courageously moved our nation forward in pursuit of liberty and justice for all. It also calls us to acknowledge that the full story of our nation’s history, including the contradictions at its founding and their lasting impact, has too often been overlooked. At a time when efforts to erase or distort our shared history continue, it is more important than ever to honor the people and communities whose courage, sacrifice, leadership, and resilience have shaped our democracy.

America’s story must honor the Indigenous peoples who are the original stewards of this land, recognize the labor, sacrifice, and enduring contributions of Black Americans whose ancestors helped build this nation, and celebrate the generations of immigrants who have sought opportunity, safety, and belonging while strengthening our communities. Their stories are not separate from the American story—they are the American story.

At the Weingart Foundation, we believe the stories we tell shape how we understand our past and imagine our future. That is why we invest in storytelling and community-led cultural initiatives that broaden our shared understanding of America, strengthen civic participation, and foster belonging.

As we reflect on our nation’s founding, we are reminded that America’s next chapter is still being written. Below are just a few of the many initiatives helping communities preserve their histories, share their stories, and shape a more just and inclusive future for all.

We The People

As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, We The People invites us to reconsider one of America’s most enduring questions: Who gets to tell the story of America?

Presented by Community Coalition and Sankofa.org, this exhibition reimagines America through the experiences, resilience, creativity, and dreams of Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, LGBTQ+, and working-class communities. Opening July 2 and running through July 19, the exhibition features the work of 30 artists and brings together neighbors, organizers, families, and community leaders to celebrate culture, connection, and collective imagination.

Restoring Our Future: Recipes for Healing and Liberation

As part of our continued commitment to Altadena’s restoration and healing, the Weingart Foundation supported Evolve Altadena Coalition’s Restoring Our Future: Recipes for Healing and Liberation collective songwriting workshop, part of the nationwide America, The Beautiful movement to imagine a future rooted in civic joy, belonging, and shared growth.

Held at the Dena Heals Wellness Center, the workshop brought together fire-impacted residents to reflect, heal, and imagine the future through music and shared storytelling. Participants created songs rooted in their lived experiences, hopes, and aspirations, demonstrating that everyone has a role in shaping the future.

Grounded in the belief that healing and civic participation go hand in hand, the workshop illustrates how creative expression can strengthen community connections, foster belonging, and help communities envision what comes next.

A Bill of Rights for Our Future

HOPE’s A Bill of Rights for Our Future invites us to reimagine the promises of the Bill of Rights for the next generation. Through essays, portraiture, digital storytelling, and public exhibitions, the project brings together leaders across advocacy, law, public service, and entrepreneurship to explore how our nation’s founding ideals can be more fully realized for everyone.

The initiative reflects the power of storytelling to spark dialogue, inspire civic imagination, and encourage people across the country to envision the future of American democracy together.

At the Weingart Foundation, we believe our democracy is strongest when we tell the complete story of who we are and lift up the narratives that bring us together. When communities have the opportunity to preserve their histories and shape their own narratives, they strengthen not only our understanding of the past but also our shared capacity to imagine and build a more just future.

As we celebrate the caregivers in our lives this month for Mother’s Day, we also observe Mental Health Awareness Month, and honor the legacy of organizations dedicated to community healing and wellbeing. An organization that sits at this powerful intersection is Black Women for Wellness, a woman-centered, health education and advocacy organization committed to advancing the health and wellbeing of Black mothers, women and girls. B.W.W. demonstrates that true wellness is a collective practice grounded in justice, culture, and community.

“If it’s not this kind of inclusive wellness, then it just becomes band-aids – band-aids to help you exist in a system that’s not meant for you to be well in,” said Janette Robinson Flint, Executive Director, Black Women for Wellness. “Mainstream wellness tells you to be okay with oppression, okay with racism, or misogyny, or sexism, all of that stuff. It just gives you coping skills, for you to be okay inside a system that is really not set up for you to be well in.”

By moving beyond these band-aids, B.W.W. shifts the focus from teaching women how to endure toxic environments to giving them the tools and political power to dismantle them. The organization bridges grassroots wellness with systemic advocacy. A cornerstone of this work is B.W.W.’s role in supporting the implementation of California’s Momnibus Bill (SB 65), which is designed to address racial disparities in maternal health and advance birth equity. Through initiatives like the Abundant Birth Project, B.W.W. secured funding for guaranteed income for pregnant individuals, expanded the midwifery workforce, and mandated better data collection on maternal mortality, and advanced policy that improves the health and wellbeing of parents and babies.

Through its Maternal Infant Health (MIH) Program, B.W.W. connects Black pregnant people and families to freestanding birth centers, doulas, midwives, and culturally responsive care that equips them with the tools to advocate for themselves. This work is life-saving. A 2023 CDC study, revealed that nearly half of all mothers—and a disproportionate number of Black women—withhold concerns during labor out of fear of being labeled ‘difficult’ or receiving lower-quality care, a silence that can have life-threatening consequences.

“We are giving Black women the tools to work with when they are engaging in the healthcare system, to say, ‘You know what, this doesn’t feel right to me. Who do I talk to about this racism?’ And to say to the providers, to the frontline staff, this is how your implicit bias is showing up, and this is how your unconscious racism is working against Black women and Black community members,” said Janette.

Beyond maternal health, B.W.W. addresses the systemic inequities that span a woman’s entire life cycle. A 2023 study found that Black women endure menopause symptoms for nearly four years longer than white women and are also significantly less likely to be offered medical interventions. Through its Grown and Sexy program, B.W.W. creates space for honest conversations about menopause, educating communities, and centering compassion, while reframing wellness as something Black women deserve at every stage of life.

The impact of B.W.W. is visible in the community leaders it produces—from foster youth who become public health advocates to volunteers who become international voices for equity. Even when the demand for their programs is overwhelming, B.W.W. responds with guides, celebrations, and systems of care rooted in Black joy.

This May, as we celebrate mothers and prioritize our mental health, we honor Black Women for Wellness for modeling a future where wellness is collective, culturally rooted, and inseparable from justice.

Across Southern California, communities are responding to urgent challenges while continuing to organize toward a future rooted in dignity, belonging, and opportunity for all. Our latest round of funding—$10.9 million in investments—reflects that dual reality: supporting partners who are in the frontlines meeting immediate needs and protecting communities from harm, while building the long-term power needed to shape a more just and inclusive region.

This work recognizes that progress does not happen in silos. Community power, narrative change, and economic stability are deeply interconnected; each reinforcing the other to create the conditions for lasting change. Together, these investments reflect an approach grounded in the intersection of these efforts, supporting communities to both navigate this moment and build what comes next.

“Our March grants reflect a commitment to building a California where communities have the power, resources, and voice to shape their own futures,” said Joanna S. Jackson, President and C.E.O. of the Weingart Foundation. “By investing in organizing, narrative change, and equitable recovery, we are strengthening the systems that allow communities not only to withstand challenges, but to lead and build the future together.”

Building Community Power to Strengthen Democracy

At the core of this docket is an investment in community power—supporting organizing infrastructure and base-building networks that enable communities to advocate, mobilize, and lead.

Weingart’s investments in We Are California, California Calls Education Fund, and PICO California reflect a strategy to strengthen alignment across movements, deepen collaboration, and expand civic engagement. These efforts are essential to protecting and advancing a multiracial democracy, ensuring communities most impacted by inequities are shaping the policies and systems that affect their lives.

PICO California

Strengthening Narrative Infrastructure to Shift Culture

These efforts are reinforced by investments in cultural power—ensuring communities have access to trusted information and the ability to shape the narratives that define them.

Through $3.4 million in funding, Weingart is supporting organizations such as Voice of O.C., I.E. Journalism Hub+Fund, AfroLA, L.A. Taco, and L.A. Local. These partners are building community-centered journalism ecosystems that reflect lived experiences, counter misinformation, and expand whose voices are heard. Together, they help create the conditions for informed participation and deeper civic engagement.

Advancing Equitable Recovery and Economic Stability

At the same time, Weingart is investing in economic power—supporting recovery efforts that stabilize communities and preserve long-term prosperity.

Through $1.6 million in funding, the Foundation is supporting equitable recovery efforts following the 2025 Eaton Fire, with a focus on preserving generational wealth and housing stability in West Altadena. This includes a grant to Habitat for Humanity – San Gabriel Valley, alongside a $2 million program-related investment to scale rebuilding efforts and ensure long-standing residents can remain in their community.

“We know that stable, safe housing is the key element to community recovery after a disaster,” said Bryan Wong C.E.O. of San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity. “Our goal is to ensure that households affected by the Eaton Fire have a path forward so that they can return home. Partnering with the Weingart Foundation allows us to provide hope and real options for rebuilding to residents of Altadena, bringing back long-term stability to generations of families.”

San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity

Together, these investments reflect a comprehensive approach to advancing equity and justice, one that recognizes that community power, cultural power, and economic stability are deeply interconnected.

By supporting organizing, strengthening narrative infrastructure, and investing in recovery, Weingart is working alongside partners to ensure communities can both navigate today’s challenges and build toward a thriving, multiracial Southern California where everyone can participate, belong, and prosper.

To learn more about the organizations and movements supported in our latest round of funding, click here.

The Weingart Foundation is proud to announce our December 2025 funding round, totaling $15.5M to nonprofits across Southern California advancing racial and economic justice and strengthening the pillars of our multiracial democracy. This funding includes $6.9 million in longer-term unrestricted operating support for anchor organizations building civic engagement infrastructure and community power, along with $3.7 million to strengthen mutual aid and immigrant and refugee legal infrastructure in response to heightened ICE enforcement across our five-county region; for the second year in a row, the Foundation’s Board approved grantmaking above our budgeted payout to meet the urgency of this moment. Together, these investments reflect Weingart’s commitment to trust-based philanthropy, long-term movement building, and meeting urgent community needs.

“This moment requires us to act with clarity and courage—standing in solidarity with organizations on the frontlines while continuing to invest for the long term. At the Weingart Foundation, we remain steadfast in our commitment to organizations and campaigns rooted in shared power, justice, and dignity for all,” said Joanna S. Jackson, President and C.E.O. “Through strategic investments that strengthen immigration legal aid resources, deepen movement solidarity, and advance narrative change we are helping build a multiracial democracy that works for everyone, not just a few.”

ADVANCING IMMIGRANT JUSTICE

Photo Credit: @amoriphotography

In addition, support for mutual aid programs in this cycle is expected to benefit an estimated 3,140 households impacted by immigration enforcement across Southern California. Together, these investments address critical gaps in immigrant justice infrastructure while providing immediate relief and long-term stability for families and communities navigating extraordinary uncertainty.

SUPPORTING ECONOMIC JUSTICE BY STRENGTHENING WORKER CENTERS

Economic justice is inseparable from Weingart’s vision for a thriving multiracial democracy. That is why we continue to provide unrestricted operating support to worker centers—essential institutions that protect and empower workers most impacted by cuts to workforce programs, weakened labor protections, and attacks on immigrant communities.

This funding cycle includes support for the Los Angeles Worker Center Network (LAWCN), a coalition that coordinates strategy, shares resources, and builds collective power across the region. Supported members include UCLA Labor Center, CLEAN Carwash Worker Center (CLEAN), Garment Worker Center (GWC), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), Pilipino Workers Center (PWC), Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC), and the Los Angeles Black Worker Center (LABWC).

As a core organization in the worker justice ecosystem, LABWC is expanding worker organizing, civic engagement, and cross-center solidarity, while leading coordinated responses to wage theft, workplace raids, and employer retaliation. LABWC is also extending its reach to regions with growing Black worker populations, including Lancaster and the Inland Empire, reflecting the long-term, coalition-driven movement building Weingart seeks to support.

“The Los Angeles Black Worker Center is a vital anchor in our city, creating the conditions for Black workers to thrive in workplaces and industries that have historically shut us out,” said La Tonya Harris, LABWC’s Co-Chair. “Our space brings Black Angelenos together to build skills, develop leadership, and take collective action that shifts policies, opens pathways to high-paying careers, and strengthens families and communities. At the LABWC, we believe economic justice is a cornerstone of racial justice, and we work every day to make that real.”

This cycle also includes support for the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, an organization that, while not a member of LAWCN, plays a critical role in the broader worker justice ecosystem by advancing health, safety, and labor protections for low-wage, immigrant women workers across California.

BOLSTERING OUR MULTIRACIAL DEMOCRACY THROUGH NARRATIVE CHANGE

The Weingart Foundation continues to learn and deepen our investment in narrative change and storytelling, recognizing that sustainable systems change requires shifting the narratives that shape public understanding, policy, and belonging. Our grantmaking is focused on building the narrative-change infrastructure in our region by supporting research-based and values-driven campaigns that advance inclusion, immigrant justice, and a democracy that serves everyone.

This funding includes support for The Angeleno Project’s LA Represent Campaign, a cross-sector initiative that builds cultural power, restores civic hope, strengthens movement infrastructure, organizing, and collaboration. By advancing intersectional strategies across issues such as immigrant inclusion, voter engagement, and equitable wildfire recovery, the campaign demonstrates how coordinated narrative change can support movement collaboration, shape public understanding, and drive systems-level change—helping move Southern California toward a more just and inclusive future.

To learn more about the organizations and movements supported in our latest round of funding, click here.

Disability justice is inseparable from racial, economic, and social justice. It emerged from the leadership of queer, trans, Black, and brown disabled activists who recognized that traditional disability rights efforts often left the most marginalized behind. Disability justice goes beyond access and legal protections like those established under the Americans with Disabilities Act (A.D.A.); it asks us to examine how society defines worth, who gets to belong, and which bodies and minds are valued. Disability justice calls for systemic change centering lived experience and advancing community-led solutions. It envisions a world where care, dignity, and interdependence are at the center.

“While the A.D.A. was a major civil rights milestone, its protections remain incomplete. Systemic change requires people with disabilities not only have a seat at the table, but lead the conversations,” shared Judy Mark, Co-Founder and President of Disability Voices United (D.V.U.). “It’s about shifting power, challenging ableism, and recognizing that true justice isn’t possible unless it includes all our voices.”

Judy brings her own lived experience—as a person with a disability and the parent of an adult son with autism—into her leadership, shaping D.V.U.’s values and approach. D.V.U. is helping to redefine what disability justice looks like in action and is building a future where disabled people have real choice, control, and power over their lives. Their work challenges the deep-rooted inequities that limit opportunity and replaces them with pathways toward self-determination and dignity.

At the heart of D.V.U.’s model is the belief that disabled people must lead the movements that shape their lives. More than 60 percent of the organization’s staff identify as disabled, many of whom are holding their first meaningful job in a world that too often locks them out. Through D.V.U.’s Self-Advocate Speakers Bureau, over 300 disabled leaders across California have received training and support to testify before legislators, speak to the media, and advocate for policies that reflect their lived experience.

These aren’t just programs, they’re powerful acts of narrative and systems change. Together, D.V.U.’s team is shifting public perception, breaking down barriers to employment and representation, and creating space for disabled people to be seen, heard, and valued as leaders in their own right.

Tina Ewing Wilson

“We are showing the world that people with disabilities are not just resilient—we are leaders, educators, and change-makers,” Judy said.

Now more than ever, the disability justice movement needs champions. As Judy put it:
“We need philanthropy to stand with us—not just in principle, but in practice. That means resourcing organizations led by disabled people, integrating accessibility in all strategies, and recognizing that our liberation is bound together.”

We invite our peers in philanthropy to listen, learn, and invest in disability justice as core to our collective future. Because when we build a world that works for disabled people, we build a world that works for everyone.