The Foundation for Change is a progressive community Foundation serving the San Diego/Tijuana region.
We work with individuals and institutions committed to CHANGE, NOT CHARITY.
By organizing DONORS, awarding GRANTS and supporting LEADERS, we help build organizations and networks in historically under-resourced communities on both sides of the border.
OUR MISSION: The Foundation for Change nurtures movements for social justice in the San Diego-Tijuana border region.
Because we value justice and inclusivity, we mobilize resources for the cause of “social justice for all / justicia y dignidad para tod@s.” Because we value accountability and expertise, we go “beyond the grant” to equip our grantees for success.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MISSION, VISION & VALUES
In 2010 the Foundation for Change is laying plans to support three major CAUSES:
Within each initiative, our strategic focus will be on immigrant and border communities.
We hope you will enjoy visiting our website. If you’d like to meet others working for social justice, check out the listing of upcoming EVENTS or sign on to our social networking site, PRO CAMBIO.
At this link you can learn how to APPLY FOR A GRANT.
At this link you can make a DONATION large or small.
Welcome to the Foundation for Change!
You can be a changemaker, too!
History
Mission
Vision
Values
Method
Programs
Our History
Founded in 1983 as a chapter of the Los Angeles-based Liberty Hill Foundation, the San Diego Foundation for Change was incorporated as its own 501c3 corporation in 1995. Across this “first quarter century,” the Foundation for Change granted over $1 million to more than 200 community-based organizations that were either “too new, too small or too controversial” to have received funding from more established philanthropic organizations. For a listing of grants, please visit GRANTMAKING HISTORY.
While proud of the organization’s history of “planting seeds of change,” leaders at the Foundation for Change wanted to accomplish more, and in 2006 the Board of Directors decided to chart a new course. This new direction resulted in the hire of John Fanestil as Executive Director in January, 2007. Under John’s leadership the Foundation has embraced a new sense of purpose and a new articulation of our mission, vision, values and method.
Our Mission
The Foundation for Change nurtures movements for social justice in the San Diego/Tijuana border region.
Our Vision
We envision ours as a bi-national region known worldwide for its economic equality, environmental sustainability and social justice. We envision a “bi-national garden” of community-based organizations working to promote “social justice for all / justicia y dignidad para tod@s.” We envision the Foundation for Change as the “go-to” foundation for progressive philanthropists and innovative leaders committed to “making change happen” on both sides of the border.
Our Values
The Foundation for Change embraces progressive values like Justice, Inclusivity and Compañerismo and combines these with values characteristic of best practices in philanthropy.
- 1. Justice. We treat all people equally and with respect, dignity and compassion both internally (board, staff, committees, grantees, donors) and externally in our larger community. Our vision of justice is one in which everyone has an equal part in creating a democratic society. In this society all enjoy access to inalienable healthcare, education, food, water, shelter, the ability to celebrate one’s own language and culture, an equal voice at the table, and self-determination of who they are. All members of our community have a right to interactions that are free from violence and abuses of power. We are committed to justice and dignity for all humanity.
- 2. Inclusivity. We practice valuing each other within and outside of our organization. We constitute ourselves (board, committee, staff, and grantees) to reflect accurately the communities that we serve. We ensure full participation by sharing power and by using consensus models of conducting business. We practice an on-going process of self-reflection with the intent of cultural democracy (eg., practicing cultural democracy by hearing the other person from their cultural/historical perspective).
- 3. Compañerismo. We are deeply committed to those experiencing injustices in our community. We walk arm in arm with them toward justice. We are in this struggle together for the long haul.
- 4. Honesty. We communicate openly, authentically and with integrity and compassion in our written and spoken communications within the organization and with our community and stakeholders. We practice being true to our word, la palabra.
- 5. Trustworthiness. We are worthy of trust by all aspects of our community by following through with our word in our internal as well as external actions. This allows for safety in relationships, internal and external. Grantees can count on the money we commit to them. Grantees can count on us to stand up for their work and their communities in all venues.
- 6. Consistency. As honest and trustworthy members of the community we are consistent and reliable in our public persona and communications with our grantees, donors and the San Diego/Tijuana community.
- 7. Strategic and thoughtful focus. We value regular, thoughtful and strategic planning. This ensures the development of an organizational infrastructure that provides us the resources that allow us to responsibly accomplish our mission and attain our vision. In practicing this we enhance our capacity to grow and get grants, increase our legitimacy, and provide grants and support resources to assist grantees with their success.
- 8. Accountability. We hold ourselves, as individuals and as stakeholders in the Foundation for Change, accountable for the promises and claims we make and to our mission and vision.
- 9. Expertise. We value, seek and utilize information from researchers, experts, subject professionals and practitioners as a basis for our decision-making; this includes our grassroots grantees. Through our grant-making, nurturing and relationship-building with San Diego/Tijuana grassroots grantees, the Foundation becomes knowledgeable about the San Diego/Tijuana community, and as such, is able to act as a resource to the larger community.
Our Method: Why Movements for Social Justice
RESOURCES > MOVEMENTS > STRUCTURAL CHANGE > OPPORTUNITY FOR THE LEAST WELL OFF
The Foundation Center has defined social justice philanthropy as "the granting to nonprofit organizations that work for structural change in order to increase the opportunity of those who are the least well off politically, economically, and socially.”
We believe this kind of structural change results most often from social “movements.” Movements like the women’s movement, the movement for LGBT equality, the movement for civil rights, have fundamentally transformed our society at many levels – from attitudes prevailing among individuals to formal articulations of political power as expressed in the form of legislation.
On the one hand, building movements may appear more art than science, but successful social movements result from the mobilization of certain predictable kinds of resources – as named, for instance, by Bob Edwards and John McCarthy:
- Material (money and physical capital);
- Moral (solidarity, support for the movement's goals);
- Social-Organizational (organizational strategies, social networks, bloc recruitment);
- Human (volunteers, staff, leaders);
- Cultural (prior activist experience, understanding of the issues, collective action know-how).
Our Programs
Here at the Foundation for Change, we think of ourselves as mobilizing resources for the work of building movements through four specific programs, which we describe this way: we organize DONORS, award GRANTS, develop LEADERS and build NETWORKS. While this work is not always linear, it can be captured graphically as a progression that works something like this:
DONORS |
|
GRANTS |
|
LEADERS |
|
NETWORKS |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Our program of donor education mobilizes resources for progressive causes. |
|
Our grants program funds local groups working in under-served communities. |
|
Our program in leader-ship development helps groups grow in strength and capability. |
|
Our networking pro-gram brings groups together to take action for common concerns. |
|
