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We all have felt the impact of heat waves this summer, but the costs and stakes are different across communities and neighborhoods in California. While temperatures rise in California, so do extreme heat illnesses and heat mortality. Those most impacted are unlikely to live in cooler coastal communities, or have access to air-conditioned homes. 

One of the biggest challenges is knowing how much to pivot to meet the myriad challenges emerging. For our part, as your regional resource for effective philanthropic practice, we are adopting a grounded yet flexible approach – staying true to the priorities that we have elevated as a community over the past three years, but finding partners and allies who can help us with emergent crises.  

The federal government is continuing to divest and deregulate climate and environmental justice initiatives. Philanthropic and statewide government funders have a critical role in deepening its investment in resilience ensuring frontline communities are able to withstand the impacts of a changing climate with steadfast environmental justice funding.  

n mid-April, 18 funders from throughout California traveled to Fresno for the California Criminal Justice Funders Group Central Valley Funder Convening. They were joined by 20 movement leaders representing community organizations throughout the Central San Joaquin Valley from Stockton to Bakersfield. Take a look at the report back, here.

The Community Arts Stabilization Trust’s goal is to acquire 100,000 square feet of space for arts groups by the end of 2018 and expand its footprint in Oakland.  Today, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced $3 million in additional funding for the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST), a game-changing organization that protects San Francisco Bay Area arts and cultural organizations from displacement. This three-year grant will help CAST realize an ambitious goal to acquire 100,000 square feet of space for arts groups by the end of 2018. With this funding, CAST will expand and prioritize its work in Oakland to create permanently affordable spaces for arts organizations.  The funding will also help CAST continue its work in San Francisco.

This is a pivotal moment in protecting and strengthening the fabric of American democracy. While we are still grappling with the destabilizing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, we are watching the threat to democracy growing as state legislators in multiple states are pushing for new voting barriers that target Black and brown people, working-class folks, young people, and immigrants.

Even before a global pandemic, that was the question we kept asking ourselves. Children are thrown into cages. Anti-immigrant rhetoric. A threat to render our immigrant communities invisible through a citizenship question on the census. Mass shootings from Buffalo, NY to Uvalde, TX.