Mission:
To improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education, and disease prevention.

Background:
The California Wellness Foundation was created in 1992 when Health Net, one of state's largest health maintenance organizations, became a for-profit corporation and, by California law, had to transfer the value of its assets to a charitable entity. One of the state's largest private foundations, TCWF awards an average of $40 million in grants each year, primarily in eight areas: diversity in the health professions, environmental health, healthy aging, mental health, teenage pregnancy prevention, violence prevention, women's health, and work and health. It also awards grants in response to timely issues or special projects outside its funding priorities.

Outstanding Web Feature:
The highlight of TCWF's Web site is Reflections, a series that details lessons learned and information gleaned from the foundation's grantmaking practices and strategies over the years. Published in HTML and PDF versions three to four annually, it critiques areas including public policy grantmaking, capacity building, communications strategies, TCWF's violence prevention initiative, and half a dozen other topics. The most recent Reflections chronicles the foundation's experiences in grants evaluation over the past twelve years.