The California Wellness Foundation has announced grants and impact investments totaling $16.7 million in support of efforts to advance health equity and provide capital to traditionally underinvested entrepreneurs.

Grants totaling $14.2 million were awarded through the Advancing Wellness grantmaking program to organizations working in the areas of community well-being, equity in access, economic security and dignity, and leading for power and change, with a focus on communities that have been disproportionately harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic instability. The foundation awarded eleven grants totaling more than $4.5 million in support of community-led solutions to gun violence, five grants totaling $1.6 million to organizations working to end generational cycles of poverty and economic insecurity, and four grants totaling $750,000 in support of storytelling projects designed to change hearts, minds, and public policy. Recipients include the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence ($375,000), A New Way of Life Reentry Project ($500,000), Root & Rebound ($300,000), Time for Change Foundation ($300,000), EdSource ($200,000), and Fresnoland Media ($100,000).

In addition, the foundation made $2.5 million in program-related investments targeted to communities of color, particularly those that have been disproportionately impacted by historic disinvestment, unhealthy environments, and community violence. PRIs include $1 million in Chingona Ventures, a women-led and diverse early-stage venture capital fund investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs, and $1.5 million in the California Rebuilding Fund, a public-private loan fund that provides affordable, flexible loans to small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on those run by people of color.

"Many communities of color and low-income communities have been historically denied access to credit and capital. This system of financial discrimination has stymied economic mobility for generations of families," said Cal Wellness president and CEO Judy Belk. "In addition to our Advancing Wellness grantmaking, our impact investments allow us to champion equity, economic security and dignity of all Californians, especially now, when so many are struggling to recover from the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic."

(Photo credit: Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence)