Perspectives

In the first installment in the series, “Insert Title Here,” James Liou, senior director of Equal Measure, shares his conversation with Eric Medina, program officer at the Weingart Foundation. Eric is also a co-chair, along with James, of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.

The inaugural cohort of the John W. Mack Movement Building Fellows participated in their last convening in early December 2020. The Weingart Foundation had the opportunity to ask Fellows Janel Bailey and Cheyenne Reynoso what they would want share with others about their experience as a John W. Mack Fellow. Here’s what they had to say.

Fred Ali, former President and C.E.O. of the Weingart Foundation and Monica Lozano, Weingart Foundation Board Member, joined Jim Ferris, Director of the U.S.C. Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy for a conversation on the changes that have unfolded at the Foundation over the last two decades.

In this interview about the Weingart Foundation’s unrestricted grantmaking program (U.O.S.), Joanna Jackson, Vice President of Programs, shares how U.O.S. has recently evolved—and how to best support the Foundation’s partners during the pandemic and beyond.

Responses from a recent survey with grantees of the Weingart Foundation highlighted organizations’ desire to us to continue to provide support “beyond the grant,” through access to technical assistance, learning communities and other activities, Vera de Vera, Director, Leadership for Movements, shared her insights on this topic.

At the Weingart Foundation, we consistently hear from nonprofits that unrestricted support is vital to achieving their missions. In order to deepen our understanding of the impact of our Unrestricted Operating Support grantmaking, we developed a series of case profiles that detail the work. Joyce Ybarra, Director of Learning, highlighted her main takeaways from this research.

As part of the Weingart Foundation’s commitment to equity, we are looking closely at the Foundation’s overall investment and financial strategies. Tim Ortez, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, shared his perspective on how our equity commitment is showing up in ways beyond our grantmaking.

In 2017, the Weingart Foundation announced our full commitment to equity. Joyce Ybarra, Director of Learning, examined our funding to assess how our commitment to inclusion and opportunity is manifesting at the Foundation.

The Weingart Foundation is committed to advancing fairness, inclusion, and opportunity for all Southern Californians. As part of this work, we formalized our Program Related Investment (P.R.I.) Fund, which allows us to expand the impact and scale of our grantmaking through low-interest loans. Rosa Benitez, Senior Program Officer, shared her perspective on the Foundation’s approach to P.R.I.s.