A Sneak Preview of What’s to Come for San Diego Grantmakers

Over the past 40+ years, San Diego Grantmakers has grown from a group of philanthropists meeting over lunch to a broad, action-driven network of 150 member organizations that collaborates across sectors with foundations, community organizations, government entities, businesses, impact investors, and more. Our evolution over this time has led us to a new era. That’s why we’re excited to announce that on December 1, San Diego Grantmakers will change its name to Catalyst of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Our new name better reflects the region we stand for, the action-oriented ways we engage, and the diverse community of funders that we’ve grown to be.

A Change Years in the Making

Three years ago, we adopted an equity-centered vision and added key focus areas of championing equity and opportunity as well as catalyzing impact investors to our strategic plan. We welcomed funders of Imperial County. Our board reached new heights too and now includes community and nonprofit leaders as well as representatives of philanthropy.

In the past two years, we have:

• Launched a Binational Migration Funders collaborative, recognizing that our region’s future is binational and that immigrants are hugely important to our community.
• Fiscally sponsored Yes In God’s Backyard, a movement circumventing barriers to housing solutions by working with private funders and faith-based communities.
• Granted over $1 million in funding for grassroots racial equity and climate justice efforts through the Social Equity Collaborative Fund, a participatory grantmaking fund.

And this year in response to Covid-19, our funder briefings attracted more than 1,000 people, we established a statewide relief fund resource, and we partnered with the City of San Diego as well as the Central San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce to distribute $1.7 million in small business relief funds.

“Catalyst members have inspired this name change through their desire to work together to accelerate the pace of change,” said Shreya Shah Sasaki, COO of Mission Driven Finance and Board Treasurer and Rebrand Committee Member of San Diego Grantmakers. “This new name signals our commitment to proactively lean into the big challenges of our day and lead with equity and collaboration on behalf of our community.”

Our staff and board are energized and committed to continue to serve alongside this vibrant funder community in building an equitable, collaborative and impactful social change ecosystem that benefits all residents in our region. Throughout the month of November, you will see further messaging of our change to Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties and on December 1, we will launch a new website that brings our new name to life. We encourage you to reach out with any feedback you may have. We couldn’t have gotten here without your support, and we are so grateful for your continued partnership and enthusiasm.