Events

Please join The James Irvine Foundation to hear from the team at Institute for the Future as they highlight themes and lessons learned from listening to California workers living on low incomes and how their work was directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This listening effort was planned and implemented by Irvine’s program initiatives, Better … Continue reading California Worker Voices: Anticipating the Future from the Frontlines

In this second session of the Foundations of Racial Equity Series, we explore racial capitalism, which describes the current economic system of extracting social and economic value from a person of a different racial identity. Racial capitalism is based on the theft, exclusion and exploitation of the land, labor, and capital of people of color. … Continue reading Racism and the Economy: Understanding Racial Capitalism | FRE Session 2

This past year, California encountered its most challenging period in recent history. The pandemic exposed systemic barriers that have long been neglected across health, housing, and the workforce while also illustrating the impact that structural inequities and racism have had on Black, Indigenous, and Latinx older adults who died of COVID-19 at much higher rates. … Continue reading Intersecting Equity, Health, Housing, and Workforce with Aging: New Philanthropic Opportunities

Join us for a conversation with Mayor Todd Gloria to learn about his vision for the arts and culture sector in San Diego, his commitment to investing in the full range of arts, culture, and heritage programming, and the need to expand philanthropy in San Diego to support the arts, culture, and heritage organizations. He … Continue reading State of the Arts: A Vision and Landscape

Imperial County is located in the Cali Baja Mega-Region, a globally unique bi-national location for business investments that is uniquely placed for foreign trade zones, international distribution capabilities, bi-national alliances, and expansion of business and economic activity on both sides of the border. Imperial County has one of the most productive agricultural industries in California … Continue reading Strategies for Impact Investing in Imperial County

As California wildfires devastate communities throughout the state, significant financial, material, and human resources are deployed to support recovery and reduce their threats on communities. Despite the well-publicized socioeconomic and health impacts of wildfires and philanthropic support, little attention is paid to the experience and needs of incarcerated firefighters. Incarcerated firefighters risk their lives to … Continue reading Incarcerated Firefighters: At the Intersection of Abolition, Workforce Development, and Wildfire Resilience

The Military Funders is a funder collaboration that focuses on helping military and veteran families in San Diego and Imperial Counties. Military Funders connects Catalyst members and cross-sector partners to learn and explore ways to collectively support local active military personnel, veterans, and their families. Currently exploring mental health issues, the group began its collaborative … Continue reading Military Funders Meeting

Public health infrastructure underpins many important priorities — such as keeping the economy open and children in classrooms. California’s COVID-19 response confirmed that our health systems were ill-prepared for such a crisis, and public health officials know another crisis is not a matter of if, but when. Congress responded quickly to fund the initial pandemic … Continue reading Investments in COVID-19 Recovery and Public Health

COVID-19 made starkly visible the disparities in our society. Nowhere was this more clear than for the Pacific Islander (PI) community in California. The data that is available shows that this community was perhaps the hardest hit by COVID-19 of any other racial or ethnic group. Philanthropy and policymakers are engaged in discussions about what … Continue reading Pacific Islanders Leading for an Equitable Recovery

Funders Together to End Homelessness San Diego (FTEHSD) is a collaborative of individual, public and private funders that explore and invest in effective systems change and services to end homelessness in San Diego County. The group is fiscally sponsored by Catalyst. FTEHSD’s goal is to build a San Diego County collaborative of funders who are … Continue reading Funders Together to End Homelessness Meeting

It is often said, “Disasters begin and end locally.” After the major news media, national nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and large funders go home, it is the local community that will be coordinating the years of recovery still to come. One tool used for this work is the often ignored but desperately needed long-term recovery group … Continue reading Hidden Gems: Funding Long-Term Recovery Groups

The STEAM Funders support education and training that contributes to a workforce pipeline trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with strong creativity and interpersonal skills. Established in July 2016, the STEAM Funders collaborative at Catalyst maintains strong connections to the San Diego STEM Ecosystem Initiative spearheaded by Fleet Science Center and also explores other … Continue reading STEAM Funders Meeting