East Bay Community Foundation Focus on Partners 2011

We aim to multiply the economic health of individuals, families and communities in the East Bay by consolidating the work of our discretionary grantmaking program and our Public & Private Partnerships department on 21 community-based organizations that know how to create change.

We will continue, as we always have, to work with our donors to identify other grantees of interest to them and to respond to emerging issues and community needs.

This new step means our discretionary grantmaking will now focus on partnerships with a more limited number of organizations, similar to the way our Public & Private Partnerships department has been working for the past three years.

This strategy is an extension of our strategy to propel economic well being that we announced three years ago – a strategy that focuses on nine East Bay communities with special needs.  Our choice of a strategy couldn’t have been more appropriate, given the reversals to the U.S. economy that occurred only a few months later.

Now, three years on, we and our donors have invested and leveraged a total of $10.2 million to advance economic opportunity and the education that leads to it. These investments supported our strategy of:

• Advancing economic opportunity for adults and families in need, particularly adults and families facing significant barriers to employment; and in
• Ensuring young children – birth to third grade – acquire literacy and math skills to be successful in the education system and therefore have economic opportunity when they become adults.

In the fall, we’ll be publishing a special report on the results of our strategy during the first three years. 

New Network: Agents of Change

Arising from our experience with many organizations over three years – all of which perform work credibly and capably -- we have selected 21 organizations to partner with going forward. 

By working intensely with these organizations, we can and will propel change by concentrating our resources and expertise where it matters most, encouraging synergies and efficiencies among the services of these organizations, and increasing impact by strengthening their capabilities to achieve their missions.

For more information on these 21 organizations, click here.

You Can Help

During the past three years, we have emphasized the importance of collaboration and what comes out of it: the power of many.  By establishing partnerships with these 21 organizations that specialize in economic opportunity and the education that leads to it, we are now consolidating the power of many into a network of change agents for the vibrancy of the East Bay and its communities.

Together with us, you can help.  You can increase the impact of your giving on the economic vitality of the East Bay by joining us in the power of many.  You can donate today to our field of interest funds that support economic opportunity and the education that leads to it.  You can also make an unrestricted donation to the Foundation’s Community Leadership Fund that not only supports our focus on our network of change agents, but also supports our research and other programs that benefit the East Bay.   Together we can.