Strategic Grant-Making

Each year, the Board chooses strategic areas of focus and awards grants to enable nonprofits to leverage their resources and meet the Community Foundation’s criteria of addressing critical, new and emerging needs in our city. Organizations and/or service providers who are able to address the strategic focus area are identified and approached to outline the program/service that might best address the issues. Often new programs are designed and implemented as a result of the grant received.


Grant Focus History
1997 – Serving needs of children and youth by promoting violence prevention

1998 – Serving needs of children and youth by promoting youth development with an emphasis on parenting education, literacy and violence prevention

1999 – Serving needs of children and youth by promoting youth development with an emphasis in arts and culture, parenting education, literacy, and violence prevention

2000 – Programs in literacy and literacy training

2001 – Programs that train, assist and develop skills of underserved individuals and communities to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency with an emphasis on improving basic personal and household financial management skills

2002 – Serving needs of homebound seniors through programs addressing home health care, food and nutrition, housing and/or rental assistance, respite care, transportation services, home modifications for those with physical and mental disabilities, and/or community outings

2003 – Programs addressing gang violence prevention and intervention for youth including school-based and after-school violence prevention programs, counseling, and training for violence prevention workers in conflict-resolution, leadership development, and continuing education

2004 – Programs offering diversity and human relations training for children and youth with an emphasis on early intervention (pre-school through 6th grade), interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, understanding differences (economic, cultural, ethnic, language, religion, etc.), longer term with sustained participation, and based on strong curriculum

2005 – Programs that directly benefit Westside Long Beach with emphasis on children, youth and families, promoting tolerance, neighborhood partnerships, and community pride.

2006 – Programs to benefit underserved youth in areas where childhood obesity and diabetes are prevalent and a family education component is included.

2007 – Serving the needs of youth workforce development with an emphasis on education in math and digital arts.

2008 – Programs to address the issues of juvenile delinquency through training in the arts

2009 - Cambodian Community History and Archive Project (CamCHAP) at Historical Society of Long Beach in partnership with professors:  Dr. Karen Quintiliani of CSU Long Beach and Dr. Susan Needham of CSU Dominguez Hills.