Community Leadership Project
The Community Leadership Project (CLP) is a special grants program to strengthen the capacities of grassroots organizations that serve low-income people and communities of color. The CLP is jointly funded by three California foundations, The David and Lucile Packard, James Irvine, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations, who are investing together to strengthen small and mid-sized community-based organizations in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley.
The Community Foundation for Monterey County is proud to have been selected as the local partner for this grants program in Monterey County. The goal is to ensure that small and mid-size nonprofit organizations working in underserved communities are able to flourish and benefit equally from public and private funding resources and, ultimately, are well equipped to fulfill their missions to positively affect the lives of diverse and low-income Californians.
We define a “grassroots organization” as a community-based organization that not only serves a low-income community, but is indigenous to it; an organization of local people working together to find solutions to problems in their own communities; and an organization committed to improving its community by fostering the empowerment that leads to individual self-reliance.
Please see our Executive Directors' Resource Group for any agency nonprofits that work with or serve low-income and diverse groups.
From 2009 through 2012, the Community Foundation is providing a total of $375,000 to nine local grassroots organizations. The organizations selected for funding are each receiving a 2-year grant totaling up to $40,000 to support operations and technical assistance services based on an organizational assessment undertaken as part of the program. In addition, participating grantees are being offered opportunities for networking and learning with peer organizations.
The first five (5) CLP grantees were selected in December 2009. In November 2010 four (4) additional grantees were selected for funding.
2010 Grantees
El Camino Real Futbol League
Girls, Inc.
Monterey County Rape Crisis Center
National Coalition Building Institute
2009 Grantees
Alisal Center for the Fine Arts
Central Coast Center for Independent Living
Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA)
Second Chance Youth Program
The Village Project, Inc.
Confirmed in Compliance with National