The California Endowment on Monday pledged to give $100 million to nonprofits led by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
The grant money, which will be paid out over 10 years, doubles the foundation’s previous commitment to Asian American organizations. Starting next month the California Endowment will start making new grants to support the immediate needs of Asian American-led groups and to help build the advocacy muscle of Asian Americans in the state.
The pledged increase follows the March killing of eight people in Atlanta, which took the lives of six Asian-American women, and a year of increased attacks on people of Asian American descent, who were scapegoated by some for the spread of Covid-19.
Shawn Ginwright, the endowment’s board chair, said the grants reflect a desire for the foundation to model “transformative solidarity” among racial and ethnic groups in the fight against white supremacy.
“Our Black, brown, Native, and immigrant communities have been standing in solidarity with our AAPI communities to tear down the walls of racism,” said Ginwright, who is a professor of Africana studies at San Francisco State University. “As a funding organization, this commitment is our way of standing in solidarity with our AAPI brothers and sisters and uplift the resilience of communities of color who continue to fight racism in this country.”
Call to Action
The endowment did not specify how it would pay for the grant increase, but it should have cash at the ready; in January, it completed a $300 million bond offering.. In a Chronicle opinion essay co-written with Cathy Cha, president of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, Robert Ross, the endowment’s president, foreshadowed the California Endowment’s intention to make a bigger commitment to fight anti-Asian racism.
“We need to invest in holistic approaches to these issues and make sure we do not perpetuate divisions by leaving racial communities competing for limited resources,” they wrote. “We need to expand the funding pie because reversing three decades of structural racism won’t come cheap.”
In the weeks after the Atlanta mass shooting, nearly $26 million was raised to support Asian American-led groups and causes, according to an Associated Press report.
Since then, several thousand Asian American business leaders committed an additional $10 million through a campaign run with the Asian Pacific Fund community foundation.
The California Endowment’s increased commitment follows the release in March of a study that showed that nonprofits that support Asian-Americans receive scant support from foundations.
Grants to those organizations accounted for only 20 cents of every 100 foundation grant dollars, according Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. The study’s release coincided with a pledge from about 600 philanthropy leaders to sharpen their focus on supporting Asian Americans.
