For the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the deadlines are:

After reviewing the grantmaking information below, those applying for grants may find a “grantmaking checklist” helpful.  To view the checklist, click here.

Since 1928, the East Bay Community Foundation has provided funding to nonprofit organizations in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  We connect donor interests to community needs and opportunities utilizing community knowledge and leadership.

In 2008, the East Bay Community Foundation Board of Directors set a new mission, which will guide our responsive grantmaking through 2020. The Foundation’s new mission is to:

Be the organization of choice for philanthropy in the East Bay through leadership in leveraging all assets in our communities to speed the transformation of low-income, disadvantaged, impoverished, underserved and underrepresented people.

In order to fulfill this mission, we will work to strengthen communities to help their disenfranchised members thrive and reach their full potentials. Our new approach will engage communities in the identification of needs and assets in order to develop and strengthen local leadership and increase capabilities of individuals to influence the fates of their communities. We will support organizations that demonstrate leadership, advocacy, and produce measurable solutions.

Therefore, through grantmaking from our own endowment, we will leverage community assets to assist low-income, disadvantaged, impoverished, underserved and underrepresented people in the East Bay. Through 2020, we will work and invest in four key East Bay communities, identified due to high concentrations of poverty and lack of proportional resources.

In 2009-2010, our responsive grantmaking (awarded through our applications processes) will target four geographic areas:

Oakland
Richmond
East Contra Costa County

Antioch

Pittsburg/Bay Point

Brentwood

Tri Cities area of Southern Alameda County

Fremont

Newark

Union City

We have identified these four key communities in which to begin our work and investments focused on early childhood success and economic development for adults and families as described below.

We will begin with these communities because of:

• The disproportion between their demonstrated needs and resources to meet those needs.
• Current and potential connections and relationships for the formation of necessary partnerships to achieve meaningful change through leveraged investments.
• Clear opportunities for grantmaking that will make a difference.

TYPES OF GRANTS
Within these communities, our grantmaking focuses on two central areas that form the underpinnings of thriving communities:

1. Support for Children to Succeed: Preparing young people at both preschool and school-age levels to succeed, focusing on the critical period from birth to third grade.
2. Economic Development: Enhancing economic opportunities for adults and families, particularly those with significant barriers to achieving employment and financial stability.

With this new focus on Support for Children’s Success and Economic Development, we will ultimately help to create and nurture healthy communities by:

1. Providing people with the resources to build assets and support for families, so adults have the ability to get a job, develop skills and advance in their employment – and so that their children are adequately prepared to succeed;
   
   
2. Building skills, capacity and leadership within local communities to address immediate injustices and impediments to success, whether they are institutional, behavioral, or a matter of insufficient resources;
   
   
3. Impacting lives of children and families in targeted communities until 2020 by developing effective, place-based strategies in each targeted community; and,
   
   
4. Attracting partners – those with both financial and political capital – on behalf of children and families in each targeted community through successfully demonstrating that change can happen in local communities as a result of our work.