2022 in Review

2022 has been pivotal year for Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties in so many ways. Together we traveled to new places (literally), cultivated relationships, and launched ambitious partnerships to better support community-led change. We developed new models of collaborative, equity-focused funding to move more resources to community changemakers. We piloted new opportunities to learn and connect across our region’s unique communities, and you showed up!

• Through our Do the Work series, we learned from community partners actually doing the work.
• We left the ballroom behind, and you joined us at our annual conference in the heart of San Ysidro. At our most collaborative conference yet, we heard from not only fellow philanthropists, but community partners, nonprofits, and individuals creating social change in our region.
• We drove narrative change around homelessness through the Ending Homelessness Starts with a Home campaign, spearheaded by the Catalyst collaborative Funders Together to End Homelessness San Diego.
• We centered community voices by fiscally sponsoring Lived Experience Advisers, a collective of trained advocates who have themselves experienced homelessness, to spread the message that Housing Solves Homelessness.
• We collectively recognized the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of state and federal funding flowing to the region through California’s Stop the Hate grant program.
• We dove into conversations about how to ensure that community leadership leads to more equitable prosperity in our region.
• We received the Council on Foundations’ 2022 Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking for the work of Catalyst’s racial justice-focused Social Equity Collaborative Fund.
• We grew as an organization, welcoming two board members, three staff members, and four new Catalyst members.

Momentum is building toward another year of innovative collaborations and outside-the-box learning to drive real change in our communities. With a growing team, Catalyst will continue to support far-ranging efforts in 2023, but we can’t do it alone. The ecosystem of change in San Diego and Imperial Counties is greater than the sum of its parts, and your commitment to our region is what makes change possible. Together, we will continue to work across zip codes, sectors, aisles, and industries to increase equity-driven solutions to our region’s most pressing challenges. The Catalyst team is honored to support this work as we move together toward a brighter, more equitable future in San Diego and Imperial Counties and beyond. Thank you for your partnership — we look forward to getting to work with you in the New Year.