A. Strategy

• Public education

B. Issue

• Civil rights/human rights

C. Organizational background
The East Bay Community Foundation was founded in 1928 as northern California's first community foundation. Its mission is to connect donor interests to community needs and opportunities utilizing community knowledge and leadership. Today it houses 400 funds and endowments, including 200 donor advised funds, and its assets are $220 million. In 2004 the foundation made grants totaling $20.8 million to nonprofit organizations in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The foundation has a staff of 25, and an active board of directors.

In January 2002, the East Bay Community Foundation began to participate in Leading by Example (LBE), a project funded by the Charles S. Mott Foundation. LBE was designed to increase four community foundations' capacity to model equity, diversity, and inclusive practices throughout their organization and operations. Through LBE, the East Bay Community Foundation embarked upon an internal review and change process in order to incorporate the values of equity and inclusion throughout the organization's work and into its strategic planning process. All staff and trustees were involved in LBE, and a core team of both groups committed to personal journeys to explore these issues and lead the rest of the organization in doing so as well.

While the foundation has always implicitly had an approach to grantmaking that supported equity and inclusion, these issues were emphasized and evolved from the organization's experience in LBE. Prior to its involvement in LBE, approximately 95% of the foundation's grants went to support communities of color. However, many of these grants did not address root causes to equity and inclusion issues. Involvement in the LBE program helped the foundation to prioritize addressing structural inequities that continue to limit communities of color. It also formalized the foundation's commitment to engage in advocacy and policy issues that are relevant to its mission. As part of this commitment and in an effort to encourage other foundations to take on similar commitments, the foundation funded NCG's publication, the Public Charity's Guide to the California Ballot Initiative Process in the summer of 2003.

D. Project background
During the foundation's LBE work, Proposition 54 emerged. Proposition 54, the Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin Initiative was on the October 2003 California Special Election ballot. Commonly referred to as the Racial Privacy Initiative, the proposition would have banned the state from collecting any racial or ethnic data. This ban would be applied to all governmental entities under the state, including local governments, school districts, and publicly funded health care and other service providers. (For another example of public policy grantmaking related to Proposition 54, see the San Francisco Foundation case study.)

The foundation's staff felt that, if passed, Proposition 54 would have a severely negative impact on the at-risk communities that the foundation served. The foundation and its grantees would be unable to track and document issues of inequity and need by race or ethnicity. Proposition 54 presented a perfect opportunity for the foundation to walk the talk of its Leading by Example experience. Indeed, because of their involvement in LBE, foundation staff and trustees quickly saw the importance of the proposition and the need to oppose it. Trustees were sent a three page memo explaining the proposition and its potential consequences. All trustees quickly agreed that the foundation should work to oppose its passage.

The foundation saw that public education around the consequences of enacting Proposition 54 was needed. Proponents of the initiative were very effective in the beginning at framing the issue as one of individual rights and racial equality.

The foundation wanted to take a public stand against the proposition. As a public charity, the East Bay Community Foundation is permitted to take a stand and campaign for or against a ballot measure without jeopardizing its tax exempt status as long as it obeyed lobbying limitations (these vary depending on whether an organization has taken the 501(h) election [for more information on this, please see the Legal Parameters section of the toolkit].) However foundation staff realized that it could have a greater impact on the issue if it also worked in partnership with other opponents. Working in conjunction with grantees such as La Clinica de la Raza and Asian Health Services, the foundation developed messages that highlighted how Proposition 54 would interfere with equal and adequate health care and education. These issues were selected because they have broad appeal to voters and are areas of foundation funding and interest.

The foundation made efforts to get these messages circulated to low-income communities of color. This was the population most likely to be impacted should the proposition be passed, yet also the least likely to have information about the proposition or to vote. Foundation leaders wrote op-ed pieces which appeared in multiple languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, and Korean, in local and press and small, foreign language papers. The foundation also submitted letters to the editor, some of which were signed by the board chair and president, and some by the heads of grantee organizations, depending on the targeted constituency. The foundation cosponsored press conferences with leaders of local public health departments to highlight the proposition's potential contribution to health disparities.

The East Bay Community Foundation also worked to get its grantees involved in the fight against Proposition 54. It issued small grants to community based organizations to conduct public education campaigns targeting low-income communities of color. The foundation also sent a letter to all grantees that described the impact of the initiative and the public stand that the foundation had taken against it. The letter encouraged organizations to mobilize their constituency, staff, and board members around the issue.

The foundation further engaged in public education around the issue by sending letters to its donors urging them to oppose Proposition 54. There was some concern that donors may not be receptive to these letters. However, the foundation only received positive feedback from donors, and there was no impact on donations to the foundation.