California holds immense potential for growth and progress in fostering economic security. Yet, challenges like poverty, which disproportionately impact Black and Latino communities, remain persistent barriers. At The California Wellness Foundation, we view values-aligned investing as a transformative strategy to redefine the role of capital in addressing these systemic issues through innovative solutions.
By prioritizing values-aligned investing, we strengthen our mission to promote health, wellness, and equity in underserved communities. Research consistently shows that wealth is a critical determinant of health. With this understanding, we center our efforts on three key pillars: access to capital, economic resilience, and inclusive wealth building. Together, these pillars create a shared prosperity framework grounded in social equity and justice.
Access to Capital
Systemic disinvestment in communities of color entrenches disparities, limiting wealth creation. Governments face increasing pressure to deliver affordable housing, quality jobs, and economic development, creating new opportunities for impact investors. Catalytic and blended capital approaches amplify impact by unlocking resources for high-risk, high-potential projects by combining concessionary and commercial funding. Cal Wellness prioritizes vehicles such as participatory loan funds, CDFIs, impact-first venture and alternative credit strategies to catalyze growth in underserved markets. One initiative we supported in California is REAL People’s Fund. This community-led, community-controlled fund seeks to shift capital and power towards a restorative, inclusive economy in the East Bay. We were one of the first investors in the fund. Since then, the fund has raised over $9M, made over $3.2M in integrated capital investments across loans, grants, and equity investments into BIPOC-led businesses, and engaged nearly 400 entrepreneurs, co-ops, and artists through power-building activities.
Economic Resilience
Impact investing increasingly focuses on building systems and offers a path forward by supporting businesses and initiatives that promote job creation, living wages, and long-term stability in vulnerable communities. Using our assets to build resilience, we help communities withstand future crises. Cal Wellness targets investments that integrate social and environmental risk factors, create jobs, provide fair compensation, and provide resilient infrastructure. One example of an investment pursuing these goals includes the ICA Fund, an accelerator and loan fund focused on closing the gender and racial wealth gap for Bay Area businesses through coaching, connections, and capital. Since launching in 2012, ICA has invested over $12M, with most of the capital flowing to women and diverse entrepreneurs.
Inclusive Wealth Building
Inclusive Wealth Building is about creating generational opportunities, not just individual prosperity. Yet, systemic exclusion from asset ownership constrains intergenerational mobility. We prioritize investments into scalable models that can rectify disparities in access to affordable housing, business ownership and entrepreneurship, and participatory decision-making. We proudly support emerging models like East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EBPREC), a community-centered and democratically run coop focused on neighborhood revitalization in West Oakland.
These pillars – access to capital, economic resilience, and inclusive wealth building – form the foundation of a shared prosperity framework. This approach transcends political ideologies because it focuses on universal values: opportunity, equity, and the belief that everyone should have the resources to be healthy and thrive. Whether conservative or progressive, the idea that thriving communities are the cornerstone of a strong society resonates across the spectrum. By aligning our endowment with these values, we demonstrate that philanthropy and investment can serve as tools for systemic change, promoting equity and justice for all.
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