Today, Sierra Health Foundation announced its investment of $1 million across 13 California organizations. The awards span the Foundation’s core priority areas: Children, Youth and Families; Economic Stability and Opportunity; Land, Water and Climate Equity; and Policy and Systems Change. These strategies focus on moving from recovery to resilience in communities that experience continuous public and private underinvestment.
“To emerge from the pandemic stronger, we must create equitable economic opportunities. COVID-19 made clear that poverty is the single largest determinant of health and well-being. The Foundation is investing $1 million to address its causes and impacts to increase wellness for low-income families and communities,” said Chet P. Hewitt, President and CEO of Sierra Health Foundation.
The cohort grantee partners as are follows:
Children, Youth and Families:
- Filipino Community of Sacramento and Vicinity – To build a community center for Sacramento’s Filipino American community that is an inclusive space to civically engage and participate in culturally and linguistically appropriate programs and services.
- First Nations Development Institute – To support the California Tribal Fund’s Gather Food Sovereignty regranting program, which advances the movement to fulfill a vision of Native communities and food systems that are self-directed, well-resourced and buttressed by community policies and systems.
- Hope and Heal Fund – To prevent gun violence in directly impacted communities through the support of a four-prong strategy of advancing strategies that work, strengthening the effectiveness of the prevention field, promoting innovation in prevention and building a vibrant network of practitioners and policymakers.
- Mutual Assistance Network – To provide structured youth engagement activities to underserved and vulnerable youth in Sacramento County during the 2022 holiday season.
Economic Stability and Opportunity:
- End Poverty in California (EPIC) – To promote economic opportunities for low-income families in northern rural California.
- REDF – To support policy initiatives to invest in and drive demand for Employment Social Enterprises—businesses that hire the very talent others have sidelined— and provide the training and skill building for those who have been historically shut out of the workforce and/or with limited economic mobility.
- Sierra Business Council – To increase participation by disadvantaged, low-income communities of color and disinvested workers in regional programs such as Community Economic Resilience Fund, US Economic Development Administration’s Good Jobs Challenge and Sierra Partnership, which is a regional landscape restoration program.
- Social Finance, Inc. – To assist local and Tribal governments and community-based organizations with matching dollars so that they can continue or begin a pilot in the State of California’s Guaranteed Income Fund.
Land, Water and Climate Health Equity:
- American Red Cross – To alleviate the increasing impacts of climate change on disaster-caused displacement, especially on the most vulnerable communities — low-income families, older adults, communities of color, and people with disabilities in Northern California counties.
- Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation – To work at the intersection of climate change and health equity in the Tahoe Truckee region.
Policy and Systems Change:
- California Budget and Policy Center – To support efforts around safety net reforms, housing/homelessness and future of work as well as expand communications and outreach efforts to more communities.
- Catalyst California (formerly Advancement Project California) – To deepen support of, and partnership with, grassroots power-building organizations based in Northern California.
- Health Access Foundation – To promote health care access, affordability and equity.