Thank you to all who joined us at the 2023 Siembra Latinos Celebration and the presentation of the inaugural Alfred Diaz-Infante Award to Ernesto Vela, Ed.D. It was a truly special evening celebrating family, philanthropy and the Latino community in Monterey County. We are proud of the accomplishments of the Siembra Latinos Fund and look forward to gathering again to...
Our local nonprofit sector is large and diverse, and the landscape has changed with our experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Not to mention in the ten years since we rebranded our programs as the Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE). To help us look ahead and stay responsive, we created the CNE Advisor Circle in Summer 2023. The...
One of the ways the Community Foundation for Monterey County strengthens communities is through scholarship funds. The CFMC manages nearly 70 named scholarship funds established by individuals, families and businesses who recognize the value of education and want to create opportunities for local students. Receiving the scholarship has made everything so much easier. I’m free to focus on my studies....
Nonprofit leaders in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties encouraged to apply by October 2, 2023 deadline Monterey County, California — The Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE), a program of the Community Foundation for Monterey County (CFMC), has officially launched its recruitment for the LEAD (Leadership, Education and Development) Institute 2024 cohort. Rising nonprofit leaders in Monterey, San Benito...
The Autism Society of California, the Finnigan family and the Community Foundation for Monterey County (CFMC) proudly announce the names of three highly qualified California students who received Achievement Scholarship awards through the National Achievement Scholarship Program. Emma Blanck of Moorpark received the 2023 1st place scholarship award of $2,000. Clara Garcia of Riverside was awarded the 2nd place $1,000...
Building South County & Celebrating 10 Years of the SMCF (Scroll down for event slideshow) The Southern Monterey County Foundation (SMCF) celebrated 10 years of impact and launched their Campaign for the Future on Saturday, August 12, 2023. Advisory Board Members shared the impact of the SMCF to improve the quality of life in South County. So far, more than...
Women’s Fund Scholarship Recipient Laura K. Rivera Shares Her Story Laura Rivera, a Spanish and Political Science major and current Vice-President and Student Trustee of Hartnell College, is a recipient of the Girls’ Health in Girls’ Hands Scholarship of the Community Foundation for Monterey County. A first-generation Latina college student named 2022 Young Adult Philanthropist of the Year by the...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO Noise. That seems to be the dominant feature of our daily lives in recent months. Noisy tweets. Noisy talking heads. Noisy battles in the media. Noise over standing and kneeling. People arguing over what constitutes patriotism, even while hundreds of thousands of DACA students who want desperately to be part of...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President & Chief Executive Officer I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to wrap my mind around the events in Charlottesville, and the aftermath, which is ongoing. Normally, this space is reserved for addressing topics of direct relevance to our work at the CFMC, so the question becomes how marchers in...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President & Chief Executive Officer We think of housing as an inalienable right. We get up. Work. Go home to a house or apartment we might own or rent. Whatever we can afford. For many folks in Monterey County, it’s not that simple. The unfortunate reality in many parts of California, and certainly...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO There’s talk of doing away with the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits nonprofits, including churches, from endorsing political candidates. Divides Church and State, Clamps Partisan Endorsements In place since 1954, the Johnson Amendment has created a bright line in the separation of church and state. Ministers, and other religious leaders, are not...
By Dan Baldwin, Community Foundation for Monterey County President/CEO Presidential elections typically answer more questions than they ask. However, the 2016 election seems to have put a lot of the country in a wait-and-see holding pattern on just about every aspect of governance as we’ve come to know it. Health care. Foreign policy. Immigration. The environment. The economy. As...
Monterey County Giving by Dan Baldwin, President/CEO Community Foundation for Monterey County Year-end always seems to prompt thinking about what was accomplished over the past 12 months. Our lives run at such warp speeds, that we move from one item to the next to the next, and so on. Every now and then we just need to take a breath and...
Dan Baldwin, President & CEO, Community Foundation for Monterey County (photo by Bradley Zeve, Monterey County Weekly) Disasters don’t create character; they reveal it. The Soberanes Fire has made clear that the residents of Monterey County are resilient and caring. Certainly, one of the reasons we choose to live here is our wonderful outdoors, including the rugged and beautiful landscape of...
Nonprofit leaders in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties encouraged to apply by October 2, 2023 deadline Monterey County, California — The Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE), a program of the Community Foundation for Monterey County (CFMC), has officially launched its recruitment for the LEAD (Leadership, Education and Development) Institute 2024 cohort. Rising nonprofit leaders in Monterey, San Benito...
The Autism Society of California, the Finnigan family and the Community Foundation for Monterey County (CFMC) proudly announce the names of three highly qualified California students who received Achievement Scholarship awards through the National Achievement Scholarship Program. Emma Blanck of Moorpark received the 2023 1st place scholarship award of $2,000. Clara Garcia of Riverside was awarded the 2nd place $1,000...
Building South County & Celebrating 10 Years of the SMCF (Scroll down for event slideshow) The Southern Monterey County Foundation (SMCF) celebrated 10 years of impact and launched their Campaign for the Future on Saturday, August 12, 2023. Advisory Board Members shared the impact of the SMCF to improve the quality of life in South County. So far, more than...
Women’s Fund Scholarship Recipient Laura K. Rivera Shares Her Story Laura Rivera, a Spanish and Political Science major and current Vice-President and Student Trustee of Hartnell College, is a recipient of the Girls’ Health in Girls’ Hands Scholarship of the Community Foundation for Monterey County. A first-generation Latina college student named 2022 Young Adult Philanthropist of the Year by the...
Monterey County, California — The Siembra Latinos Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County is proud to announce that Ernesto Vela, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for the Monterey County Office of Education, is the recipient of the inaugural Alfred Diaz-Infante Award. The award was established in 2023 to honor the late Alfred Diaz-Infante, a community leader and nonprofit...
If the Community Foundation for Monterey County is to be effective, if it is truly Inspiring Philanthopy; Strengthening Communities, it is because we’re a reflection of a powerful philanthropic landscape that stretches from Big Sur to Castroville, Salinas to San Ardo, and all points in between. It is truly an honor to be your community foundation. – Teri Belli,...
“She’s Brooklyn, I’m Bronx,” says Stuart Wells of his wife Daphne. Meeting as youth, they were “both shot by cupid’s arrow” at the same time and married after their first year of graduate school. They both deeply value education, having received free college tuition in New York state schools, and later became teachers themselves, each with a 36-year career. Daphne...
