The Path to a Just, Thriving California Runs Through California’s Latino Community

Back to Newsroom

As California’s rebuild continues, the Latino Community Foundation is incredibly proud to partner with the James Irvine Foundation to advance a collective commitment to economic justice and unleashing the power of Latinos across California!

Together, we are thrilled to announce a $725,000 investment into power-building Latino organizations across Fresno and Salinas, regions that are key to California’s economic recovery. These communities thrive and prosper thanks to the labor, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship of the greater Latino community – much like the entire state of California.

This historic partnership and investment from LCF and the Irvine Foundation is a testament to the belief that the path to creating a just, thriving California runs through Central California’s Latino community!

Thus far this year, LCF has invested over $2 million into the Central Valley and Central Coast regions of the state.

More than 23 Latino-led community organizations will receive grants to strengthen their infrastructure for economic power-building, advocate for an inclusive economy, and to create pathways to employment and entrepreneurship for our families. A list of these mighty and passionate organizations is shared below.

LCF leveraged its signature participatory grantmaking approach throughout the selection process. With input and review from a selection committee composed of Latino community leaders and youth, and representatives from the Central Valley and Central Coast Latino Giving Circles, new and current LCF partner organizations were chosen to lead this important work in the region – and they’re all eager to deepen their impact!

Organizations like Cultiva la Salud in Fresno are dedicated to health equity in the Central Valley. A rise in violence towards street vendors, often the sole provider for low-income families, led Cultiva la Salud to create a community commissary kitchen. Funding through this grant will seed this project, fueling a group of food micro-entrepreneurs who will be able to safely run their businesses.

Other organizations like Xinampa, based in Salinas, are working to incubate and launch the next generation of Latinx engineers and start up leaders! While Salinas is home to rising ag-tech companies, it continues to exclude local residents, farmworkers, and their children. Housed by our partners at Digital Nest, Xinampa aims to connect Latino youth to their ancestral wisdom, ingenuity, and innovation so they are equipped to thrive in the emerging ag-tech and bioengineering fields.

This initial round of grants is part of a long-term commitment to increase funding to grassroots organizations in the Central Valley and Central Coast regions and advance three goals:

- Build Latino civic power to advocate for equitable community investments

- Support Latino workforce development to increase access to better career opportunities

- Strengthen Latino Entrepreneurs and Latino-owned small businesses

The Latino Community Foundation is committed to funding organizations that are often overlooked, but all with a hunger for creating a better, equitable future where Latino families have opportunities to live and work with dignity.

That is why the Latino Community Foundation launched the Latino Power Fund: a 5-year, $50 million investment into the heart of Latino power-building in California: grassroot, Latino-led organizations. It is through this strategic initiative that we strengthen this work in Central California and beyond, building the collective power of the Latino community to achieve long-term, transformative change.

We invite you to join us in this historic effort at latinocf.org/power!

Advocacy and Power Building Partners 

- Fresno and Salinas: Centro Binacional de Desarrollo Oaxaqueño (CBDIO)

- Fresno: Cultiva La Salud

- Fresno: Fresno Barrios Unidos

- Salinas: *Building Healthy Communities 

- Salinas: *Center for Community Advocacy (CCA) 

- Salinas: *Mujeres en Accion 

- Salinas: Santa Cruz Community Ventures 

- Salinas: MILPA 

- Salinas: *Artist Ink 

- Salinas: *Communities Organize for Relational Power in Action (COPA) 