ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Our current and future impact is built on our past accomplishments and learnings. Major initiatives over our first 10 years (2009-2019) have included:
- Grants totaling $1,030,000 to organizations serving the region’s most vulnerable populations to aid their response to increased need and decreased revenue due to Covid-19 and associated economic impacts. Funds were granted through The Inland Empire Funders Alliance Rapid Response Fund over a 10-week period starting in March, 2020 with collaborative grantmaking contributed by a total of 12 Funders Alliance members.
- The coordinated IECounts Initiative for a Census 2020 complete count in the region, with philanthropic funders strategically complementing public resources through a co-funding initiative and pooled grantmaking fund of $1.6 million to support local nonprofits engaged in community outreach and infrastructure-building efforts.
- Outreach and education with funders in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and statewide to raise awareness of the unique needs and assets of the Inland Empire, regional and peer-to-peer advocacy to increase their grantmaking engagement here.
- Successful implementation of the Expanding Nonprofit Excellence Initiative, a cohort- based capacity building program aimed at supporting promising nonprofits to increase their effectiveness and readiness to scale impact.
- Listening sessions to build relationships and increase communication, trust, and learning among nonprofits and funders in the region for more responsive grantmaking and intersectoral collaboration.
- Development of the Guide to Promising Initiatives for Funding Investments in Inland Southern California, a directory of collaboratives and nonprofits in the region with a track record of successful impact and stewardship of resources.
- Co-convening, incubation, and backbone support for the Inland Empire Capacity Builders’ Network, a collaborative of nonprofit providers of training and management support services to local nonprofits across the two-county region.
- Development and implementation of the Changing the Narrative Campaign to shift multi-sectoral stakeholder perceptions of the Inland Empire and generate a more coherent, affirming, and balanced framing of the region’s assets, needs, and potential.
These ongoing efforts have borne tangible fruit. Key results include:
- Foundations outside the IE have increased grantmaking in the region by 143%, from an estimated $46.7 million in 2013 to $113.6 million in 2016.
- In the past five years membership in the Funders Alliance has more than doubled, indicating increased interest and member value on the part of grantmakers.
- Relationships among funders, nonprofits, capacity builders, and the communities they serve have been strengthened and deepened.
- The Funders Alliance has established a reputation as a sought-after resource helping funders learn about the Inland Empire by creating informational resources on the region’s unique needs, assets, and opportunities for grant investment.
- The Funders Alliance has become an advocate for Inland Empire nonprofits. There is an opportunity to extend that role to increase influence with business and public sectors.
- The Inland Empire Census Funders Table leveraged relationships to raise $1.6 million in pooled funding for Census outreach efforts across the Inland Empire. Additional resources were also mobilized as co-funding by Funders Alliance members.