Overarching Impact Brief: Supporting a Community-led Vision for Housing Justice and Equitable Development

As funders, we enter our work and partnership knowing there is a history and context already in motion.

With powerful work already underway when we started funding and learning about these regions across the state, our goal was to hear their priorities and align our funding to
their efforts.

Community Advisors are the nonprofit partners who have directed the development of the Fund from the beginning. They employ various strategies in their work, and serve a range of communities who are most impacted by unjust housing and inequitable development practices and policies in their respective regions.

An overwhelming majority of Community Advisors serve people surviving on low-incomes (91%) and immigrant communities (73%). They also serve youth (61%), unhoused families and individuals (58%) and seniors (55%). Over one-third of Community Advisors also report serving LGBTQ+ individuals (39%), Indigenous communities (36%) and formerly incarcerated individuals
and their families (36%).

From Community Advisors: What Makes the Fund a Unique Partner?

Community Advisors shared these key differentiators of the approach and partnership of the Fund for an Inclusive California:

F4ICA provided technical assistance to help us imagine and strategize our work as well as funding the creation of our coalition that included trust building and relationship building with other organizations. They trusted us in being able to invite and fund other organizations to bring to the table.

F4ICA is a true partner and has been since the start. They listen and shape their strategies based on what they hear from the field and from organizers. It’s a different dynamic that helps us to truly build power. Too often there are power imbalances with funders that are frustrating and not helpful to creating change. That has never been the case with F4ICA. They are a model for creating true partnerships among funders and community groups.

Central Valley Community Advisor

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Co-designed in 2018 with grassroots leaders, our work is guided by five outcomes that bring us closer to the community-driven vision of thriving and vibrant communities in California. Throughout the course of our partnership, we have held regional sessions, one-on-one meetings, and conducted surveys to gather feedback from Community Advisors on how to meaningfully partner as funders and how we can further support progress toward these shared outcomes.

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Outcome 1: Strengthened the organizational capacity of core base-building organizations, coalitions and alliances working to advance and implement community-driven solutions.

Community Advisors highlighted how the Fund strengthened their organizational capacity to organize and build power for housing justice.

The multi-year support allowed us to have the confidence to hire additional staff. The additional organizing staff capacity allowed us to increase our ability to build a deeper and wider leadership base in multiple districts and cities, as well as to grow our collective power to push campaigns and policies forward.

Bay Area Community Advisor

The support from F4ICA has enabled us to grow our tenant organizing work. Specifically in the last year we connected with over 800 tenants from buildings in [the region]. More recently, we engaged these residents as part of a citywide committee of tenants who are building power to address the lack of policy protections for tenants in [the area].

Bay Area Community Advisor

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Outcome 2: Expanded the “we” of the housing justice movement by supporting organizing groups with an intersectional approach as well as more nascent organizing efforts.

Community Advisors highlighted how the Fund helped grow the housing justice movement by supporting relationship building, partnerships, and collaborations.

$300,000 was distributed through our Emerging Opportunities funds to smaller organizations that were not explicitly housing-focused or that sit outside of the urban core where there is little to no organizing capacity, but that were critical to our partners’ efforts.

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One Inland Region Community Advisor shared that their flexible operating budget was 10%, the remaining tied to project support and direct services. With general operating funding, the volunteer organizers were able to advocate for affordable housing for immigrant farmworkers, securing state funding to house farmworkers during the pandemic.

F4ICA funding has allowed us to convene and facilitate a regional coalition that is focused on housing justice, which is crucial to achieving our advocacy goals and also strengthening the movement in the region to win transformational change.

Inland Region Commuity Advisor

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Outcome 3: Strengthened the organizing infrastructure across California by facilitating collaboration in and across regions and issue areas, and by supporting local organizations to play a more active role in state-level advocacy and civic engagement efforts.

Community Advisors highlighted how the Fund helped grow the housing justice movement by supporting relationship building, partnerships and collaborations.

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Outcome 4: Elevated the vision of community-driven development, one in which low-income communities and communities of color are empowered to shape what sustainable development looks like in their local neighborhoods.

Community Advisors highlighted how the Fund elevated the vision of housing justice and
equitable development through narrative shift, policy advocacy and shared visioning.

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The partnership with F4ICA has assisted us not only leverage additional financial resources to do our organizing and power building work but it has also created a space of partners that all work together for a similar vision. It is very difficult to secure funding for community organizing and power-building work, F4ICA financial support has been very important for us to continue with our mission and vision.

Inland Region Community Advisor

Narrative shift and communications strategy are areas where Community Advisors would like F4ICA to continue to direct its support, with 33% uplifting narrative shift as a key strategy for the Fund’s next phase and 30% uplifting communications strategy.

It has helped us get closer to defining the role and power of culture – cultural strategies and cultural spaces. Having to articulate this in the context of housing justice has helped us in making good arguments for the role of culture. Our advocacy has strengthened, and it has made us consider the idea of a 501c4.

Bay Area Community Advisor

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Outcome 5: Modeled equity-driven collaborative philanthropic practices that are rooted in racial and economic justice by creating a learning community to catalyze increased philanthropic funding for power-building organizations.

Community Advisors highlighted how the Fund has influenced peers in philanthropy to increase their support and investment in power building and housing justice.

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Five years ago, grassroots organizations in the housing justice ecosystem had a prominent focus on tenant rights and tenant protections.

Now, organizations are holding a longer-term view, inclusive of both the defensive fights such as tenant protections as well as moving into longer term, proactive solutions through equitable community development that preserves and produces more affordable housing.

As phase one of F4ICA work continues to reveal new learning, planning for phase two, which sets a five year course in motion, is underway with a tremendous volume of work upon which to build. Expanding the pool of available philanthropic resources will remain a priority, as will expanding our philanthropic practice of leading in partnership with communities, listening to their expressed priorities, and leveling out the balance of interests between both philanthropy and the communities it supports.

The next phase of F4ICA will place increased emphasis on supporting specific regional strategies, expanding the available pool of capital in current focus regions and new areas, and growing the core of philanthropic actors in the housing justice ecosystem.

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Thank you to Our Funding Partners

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Support the Fund for an Inclusive California

In our initial phase of work, the Fund successfully mobilized philanthropy to support community power building, defend wins and make advances in housing justice and equitable development.

We are committed to deepening our support of the housing justice movement to realize a generational vision of thriving communities.

Reach out to us at F4ICA@commoncounsel.org to learn more about our work, partners, and how you can get involved.

Regional and Statewide Perspectives

This section shares highlights from regional partners that focus on unique perspectives and changes in the housing landscape. It not intended to be a regional landscape or policy analysis, but rather a reflection of key regional issues surfaced by Community Advisors and Statewide Convening attendees. The section starts with the Bay Area and moves to the Central Valley and Greater Los Angeles region, and concludes with a statewide perspective.