Cal Wellness Awards $7.6 Million to Advance Health Statewide

The California Wellness Foundation has announced grants totaling $7.6 million to organizations working to improve the health of Californians. Grant recipients include the Oakland-based Common Counsel Foundation, which was awarded $330,000 to partner with Native Americans in Philanthropy on Native Voices Rising, a fund that relies on Native American community members to recommend grants to organizations that serve and are led by Native Americans; the Kounkuey Design Initiative in Los Angeles and Public Health Advocates in Davis, which will receive grants of $400,000 to develop a joint campaign that helps underresourced communities secure the funding they need to create parks and open space; and the Shasta Regional Community Foundation and United Way of Northern California, which were awarded $40,000 each in support of their efforts to help victims of the Carr Fire, which has scorched several hundred of thousands of acres of land and destroyed more than twelve hundred structures in Shasta and Trinity counties. The foundation also awarded $105,000 to Community Partners in Los Angeles in support of its African American Board Leadership Institute, which works to broaden the pipeline of qualified African-American professionals serving on health-focused nonprofit boards and state and local commissions; $25,000 to San Francisco-based Equal Rights Advocates in support of its state-level community education and public policy advocacy; and $165,000 to Foundation Center to provide capacity-building assistance to thirty-five California nonprofits and strengthen the assessment of philanthropic investments aimed at advancing health equity in the state.