March 2023 Grant and Impact Investing Highlights

The Weingart Foundation awarded over $7.6 million to 43 nonprofit organizations advancing racial justice and made a $10 million commitment to a mission-aligned fund. More than half of the grants provide unrestricted operating support to organizations that serve historically marginalized communities. The Foundation is operationalizing its racial justice mission with BIPOC leaders at the helm of 84% of the nonprofit partner organizations receiving unrestricted grants.

The Foundation is strategically transitioning its approach to grantmaking by providing larger grants to organizations that closely align with one or more of the Foundation’s strategic priorities:

• Strong and healthy communities
• Building civic power
• Advancing just systems

The Foundation intentionally partners with coalitions building political power in communities impacted by institutional racism. For example, we support networks that advance worker justice. Over the past 18 months, the Foundation has provided over $3.6M in multi-year grants to 10 Southern California workers centers and the networks that support them. The most recent round of grants includes the Los Angeles Worker Centers Network and four of its network partners:

• Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance
• CLEAN Carwash Worker Center
• Garment Worker Center
• Pilipino Worker Center

The network operates at the intersection of economic, immigrant and racial justice. Together, these groups have achieved notable policy and legal victories in recent years as they work towards creating meaningful solutions for the lowest-paid workers in the region.

A quarter of the grants in this cycle are Strategic Opportunity Funds that can serve as catalysts that sustain nonprofits and coalitions. For example, the Weingart Foundation is providing seed funding to Pomona United for Stable Housing (PUSH) Coalition, a grassroots coalition of tenants, community members and nonprofits advancing housing justice. PUSH Coalition successfully organized for emergency rent stabilization in Pomona, protecting vulnerable families from losing housing. With the Foundation’s support, PUSH Coalition will strengthen its administrative infrastructure and invest in contract management, board development, and communication capacities to achieve broader impact.

In this cycle, the Foundation is expanding its support to nonprofits that serve individuals transitioning out of the criminal justice system, and that advocate for criminal justice reform. This includes two new partners in the Antelope Valley, Paving the Way and Timelist Group. Both partners provide direct services to justice-involved people while playing a critical role in systems change coalition efforts. These organizations are key partners in Cancel the Contract, a local power-building coalition pushing for school safety through police-free campuses.

Impact Investing

The Foundation also recently committed $10 million dollars in Kah Capital Mortgage Credit Fund II, a fund managed by Kah Capital Management, a leading investment management firm focused on mortgage credit and led by people of color. The investment will support distressed borrowers utilizing Kah Capital Management’s technology driven servicing oversight strategy to restructure their mortgage loans and prevent foreclosures, prioritizing home retention. Many of the borrowers assisted through Kah Capital Management’s strategy are people of color living in low-income communities. This investment advances the Foundation’s housing justice work.

Additionally, the Foundation pledged $5 million, as part of a consortium of funders, to the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP). CIGP recently provided a $2 million loan guarantee for affordable housing to Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), a Community Development Financial Institution that invests in communities of opportunity, equity, and well-being. Specifically, Weingart’s commitment will support LIIF’S Black Developer Capital Initiative (BDCI) which provides pre-development lines of credit to emerging, Black housing developers who face challenges in accessing flexible, early-stage capital.

For a full list of our March 2023 partners and grants, click HERE.