The James Irvine Foundation has announced grants totaling $7.7 million in the areas of the arts, career readiness, education, and civic engagement and empowerment.

Four grants were awarded through two new grantmaking areas at the foundation — career readiness and living-wage work, and "voice and influence." To bolster efforts to help low-income working families and young adults succeed in jobs that pay a living wage, the foundation awarded $1 million over two years to the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) to expand its suite of services for the formerly incarcerated, $1 million to ICA Fund Good Jobs to continue its work helping entrepreneurs provide good jobs in low-income communities; and $3.3 million to Year Up to expand its program offerings for youths. And in support of grassroots organizing aimed at increasing the political participation of low-income Californians, the foundation awarded a two-year, $500,000 general operating grant to the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE).

Other grant recipients include Los Angeles Master Chorale, SRI International, and Communities for a New California Education Fund.

For a complete list of grant recipients, see the Irvine Foundation website.