Philanthropy needs a major systems overhaul. For foundations that have been in place for decades, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Change is intimidating – and it’s necessary.
The California Endowment (TCE) is a well-known name in philanthropy, but not everyone is familiar with its work. It’s a statewide health and social justice foundation focused on expanding access to affordable, quality health care for underserved communities and promoting fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. TCE recognizes the difference between “healthcare” in a doctor’s office and a more all-encompassing vision of “health care.” “Health care” requires racial equity. It requires neighborhoods, schools and communities that support the overall health of individuals, which can’t exist without equity. TCE supports wellness, inclusion and shared prosperity for all Californians and uses grantmaking to do it.
Over the past ten years, TCE has done a tremendous amount of research on and become a leader in trust-based philanthropy. And the work doesn’t stop there. TCE has teams dedicated to ensuring its findings and best practices are accessible and distributed to other leaders in the field for a ripple effect.
TCE isn’t putting a bandaid on small problems and calling it a day, but instead is looking for the underlying causes of the wound and addressing them. It’s investing in leaders in the community to make grassroots changes happen. Many of our clients have been TCE grantees in the past. We’ve seen the impact of TCE’s grantmaking in our own communities. For us, it’s an honor to work with a foundation that has such a long history of advocating for real change at the source.
Puzzling together the pieces for change
We’ve partnered with TCE to build campaigns around pivotal moments in the foundation’s history and strategically craft communications that center the voices of the foundation’s leadership and the changemakers on the ground. Some of the projects we’ve worked on are:
The announcement of TCE’s ten year transition from research to expanding their reach across California and increasing their impact
We celebrated the past ten years of research and grassroots change, and laid out the map for the next ten years of work. TCE envisions a California where we have a robust, intergenerational ecosystem of organizations building power to advance health, justice, and racial equity. This is an answer to the communities’ calls to be active locally and to focus on larger opportunities for change. This expansion helped lead to the creation of the Social Bond, a historic investment in the future of California.
Promoting the Social Bond, a historic investment in California’s, “Good Troublemakers”
The Social Bond is a $300 million investment in the grassroots changemakers of California and was created for several reasons. TCE’s research showed big changes were needed in philanthropy. The reckoning on race and the inequitable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic only made the need for change more obvious. The Social Bond seeks to fund the Good Troublemakers who are working to create a healthier and more equitable California. It recognizes that without racial equity, there can be no health equity.
Together, Mixte and Change Consulting, a Black-owned, social communications agency with a focus on racial and social justice, collaborate to ensure effective communication internally as well as externally on the social bond, and that the focus never stays on TCE, but on the work the grantees are building from the ground up.
Amplifying 10 years of research from the Learning and Evaluation (L&E) team
We partnered with TCE’s L&E department to share learnings from its 10-year Building Healthy Communities initiative. To begin our work, we developed strategic dissemination plans to move key findings and data in front of decision-makers who can advance health equity across the nation – be it through policy, protocol, partnerships or other directives. We created templates that allow the research to be summarized in ways that are accessible to academic and non-academic audiences alike. As we move forward, we’re creating promotion toolkits to spark conversations both online and offline, gathering spokespeople, earning media coverage and developing collateral for legislators, advocacy and community-based organizations, foundations and more.
What’s next?
We want to see a California that leads the nation as a powerful and conscientious voice for wellness, inclusion and shared prosperity. Sharing TCE’s success with trust-based philanthropy allows other foundations and funders to change their own funding models and to support grassroots change. The people who are closest to the problems are the ones closest to the solutions. Funding those groups will lead us to a healthier, more racially just and equitable California.
Feeling inspired? Want to explore how a social justice communications agency can provide strategy and support for your nonprofit or foundation? Send us a message to get started today.
