In the decade since it was created, the Woodland Hills-based California Endowment has become one of the state's richest healthcare foundations and a force in the state's capital, the Sacramento Bee reports.

With more than $3 billion in assets and a mission to expand health care in underserved communities, the foundation has made more than six thousand grants totaling $1.3 billion. It has also been a principal funder of the Healthy Kids Program, which has dramatically reduced the number of uninsured children, regardless of immigrant status, in ten counties, with eighteen more in the pipeline. In fact, the success of the program is a major reason why the Schwarzenegger administration is considering proposals to cover the remaining 10 percent — fewer than one million — of the state's uninsured children.

"Community coalitions in Santa Clara and Alameda [counties] came up with the vision," said foundation CEO Robert Ross. "They found a way, through a local, public-private — mostly grassroots — coalition to piece together resources and dollars to make it happen." Bills to expand Healthy Kids statewide are moving through the legislature, but they do not include funds to cover the estimated $119 million to $331 million annual cost. "If we don't get there this year, we're not going to walk away," said Ross. "We're going to continue to rally support."

Other projects funded or co-funded by the foundation include the Agricultural Worker Health and Housing Program ($31 million); the Partnership for the Public's Health ($25 million), a collaboration with the Public Health Institute, community groups, and public health departments that works to redesign systems to protect and improve public health throughout the state; California Workers for Better Health ($16 million), a joint project with the Rockefeller Foundation; and the California Workforce Initiative ($7 million), a partnership with the California HealthCare Foundation that works to collect and analyze data on the state's changing healthcare workforce, encourage reform of state and federal health policy, and create new curricula to train healthcare professionals.