Northern California Grantmakers

Last week NCG member Blue Shield of California Foundation announced the appointment of Peter Long as its new President and CEO. Peter will join the foundation on July 6th to begin his tenure.

“Peter currently serves as Senior Vice President for Executive Operations at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. In that role, he has led the Foundation’s activities related to U.S. global health policy among other management responsibilities. Prior to that, Dr. Long was a Senior Program Officer and then Director of Research and Planning at The California Endowment in Los Angeles, CA, where he led The Endowment’s efforts to secure health insurance for all children in California.”

Join NCG in welcoming Peter to our grantmaking community.

Read Blue Shield full press release on the appointment online.

NCG member the Ford Foundation announced yesterday the launch of Metropolitan Opportunity, “a five-year, $200 million effort to help transform the way cities, suburbs and surrounding communities grow and plan for the future, promoting a new metropolitan approach that interweaves housing, transportation and land-use policy to foster greater economic growth.”

The initiative’s goal is to expand opportunity for all living in a metropolitan region “by ensuring that metropolitan communities plan together and collaborate on such common challenges as affordable housing, infrastructure investments, education and job creation.”

The initiative will encourage communities to move away from the model of competing for resources from funders, both public and private, to collaborating on regional issues.

“We want to break down the walls that separate leaders who should be working together,” said George McCarthy, director of Metropolitan Opportunity at Ford. “We aim to unite policymakers and innovators from across the fields of transportation, housing and land use. When investments in these major systems are planned with an understanding of how they intersect and impact the lives of all people in a region, the result can be transformative.”

Read the full press release online.

NCG member the W.K. Kellogg Foundation announced yesterday the launch of American Healing, a five-year $75 million initiative that “aims to improve life outcomes for vulnerable children and their families by promoting racial healing and eliminating barriers to opportunities.”

“The Kellogg Foundation’s vision is for a nation to marshal its resources to ensure that all children in America have an equitable and promising future,” said Sterling K. Speirn, president and CEO. “That is simply not the case in many communities across the country today. The goal of the America Healing initiative is to help make that vision a reality by engaging communities and supporting them in the hard work of racial healing and addressing the effects of historic and contemporary structural issues, such as residential segregation and concentrated poverty.”

During the first phase of the initiative, over one hundred organizations will receive grants that total more than $14 million that will support healing efforts “among racial and ethnic groups that address historic burdens, disparities and barriers to opportunity.”

Learn more about the America Healing initiative.

Watch the signature video produced by the Kellogg Foundation to highlight the spirit of the initiative.