Santa Barbara Foundation Ends 2012 Distributing Over $20 Million in Grants
Grantmaking Addresses County’s Challenges and Opportunities by Providing $2 Million in Year End Grants to 41 Nonprofits
Year end grants are a component of the Santa Barbara Foundation’s charitable giving. In 2012, the Foundation provided $2 million in year-end grants to 41 nonprofits. Grants are supported by income from the Foundation’s unrestricted endowment and are awarded competitively based on a rigorous process of research, due diligence, planning, and evaluation.
Three types of grants were offered in 2012 – core support to help organizations address basic needs such as hunger, shelter, and health care; capital support to maintain, improve, and expand infrastructure and facilities as a means to address community needs; and innovation grants to support fresh ideas and fuel new approaches to long-standing problems and emerging issues.
Known as Strategy Grants, these grants are the foundation’s largest responsive grants program (grants normally above $5,000 and up to $75,000) and cover a range of areas including arts and cultural expression; education and youth development; protection of the environment and historical places; sustainable economic growth; safety; health and human services; and civic engagement.
“Giving is not just a word here but a way of life,” said Ron Gallo, president & CEO of the Santa Barbara Foundation. “With the help of many individuals, families, and aligned philanthropic institutions who have chosen to invest in and with us at significant levels, we will continue to work toward enhancing the quality of life in our communities and strengthen the way that our nonprofits work so they can, in turn, increase their efficiency and impact. We are endeavoring to accomplish things that can only be achieved through a sustained partnership with an inspired philanthropic sector.”
As the community foundation for the entire county, the Santa Barbara Foundation takes three core components as fundamental to its mission – partnering with donors; strengthening the nonprofit sector; and identifying and addressing community needs. Through donors’ passions and strategic grantmaking utilizing the Foundation’s expertise, purposeful philanthropy goes beyond dollars in the community impact achieved. The continuous integration of inspired investments into the community, along with careful stewardship of foundation assets, is the catalyst for positive change that is the key to the successful collective future of all county residents.
“This past year was a model of donors working together with the foundation in creative ways to make meaningful changes in the community,” said Jan Campbell, senior vice president of philanthropic services at the Santa Barbara Foundation.
The Foundation’s discretionary investments in 2012 were made with funding by partner investors including the Orfalea Foundation; the Cavalletto Charities; and through Santa Barbara Foundation donor-advised and field-of-interest funds.
For details on the foundation’s grantmaking or to learn more about the ongoing work of grantees, please visit www.sbfoundation.org.
About the Santa Barbara Foundation:
The Santa Barbara Foundation is a community foundation established in 1928 to enrich the lives of the people of Santa Barbara County through philanthropy. As one of the largest private sources of funding for area nonprofits, agencies, and college bound students, the Foundation builds and facilitates philanthropy through donor partnerships; invests in nonprofits to strengthen the nonprofit sector; and identifies and strategically addresses important community needs to solve problems. Guided by compassion for the most vulnerable and those most in need of help, excellence in what it supports and with whom it partners, and integrity with a focus on stewardship and transparency, the Santa Barbara Foundation is invested in a more vibrant, engaged, and meaningfully connected Santa Barbara County…for all.
