At the California Community Foundation, our mission is clear: expand access to a good life for all. It begins with providing for basic needs.

Every day, across Los Angeles County, people wake up and do what they have always done — go to work, take their children to school, care for aging parents, tend to their communities. They are not asking for much. They are asking for a fair shot at a good life.

For too many of our neighbors, that fair shot was already slipping away. Now it is being pulled back even further.

More than 1.3 million Angelenos already live in poverty. More than half of our renters spend over a third of their income on housing — leaving too little for medicine, utilities or groceries. Families were already making impossible choices before anyone in Washington or Sacramento picked up a pen. And now, proposed state and federal budget cuts threaten to strip more than one million of our neighbors of food assistance, healthcare and housing. The $5 billion in reductions will not fall on those who can absorb them. They will fall on the family already choosing between groceries and medication. On the senior who depends on a monthly benefit to stay in her home. On the child whose health coverage is the only safety net his family has ever known.

This is not a distant policy debate. This is happening here. And the people it will hurt most are people who were already hurting.

For 110 years, the California Community Foundation has believed that Los Angeles is at its best when it refuses to leave anyone behind. Through the Great Depression, earthquakes, wildfires and a global pandemic, this community has shown — again and again — that it is capable of extraordinary things when it chooses to come together. That history is not just something we look back on with pride. It is the foundation we stand on today. We are called to make that choice again.

Philanthropy cannot replace government. But it can light the way. It can hold the line. It can make sure that when families reach for help, something is there. That is what CCF is doing — keeping people connected to benefits and care, amplifying the voices of those most affected, advocating to protect essential programs, and convening leaders across philanthropy, business, labor, faith and government to respond together.

There are also concrete ways to be part of the response right now. Supporting emergency food assistance, healthcare enrollment, housing stability and the legal services that help families navigate a rapidly shifting landscape — these are the places where generosity translates directly into lives stabilized. CCF is here to connect those who want to give with the organizations and funds where it will matter most.

This newsletter is an invitation to understand — and then to act. The lead story brings you to the front lines of the budget crisis, told in the words of those living it. You will also meet Eaton Fire survivors turning personal loss into policy change, and a growing coalition of educators and researchers reimagining how we recruit and retain teachers in our highest-need schools, as well as wildfire survivors — people and animals alike — finding healing together at Big Heart Ranch in Malibu. One boy, cradling a chicken in his arms at the ranch, said it was “the happiest I’ve felt in a long time.” Even in the hardest moments, our county finds a way and hope prevails.

Read these stories. Share them. Let them move you.

Our region thrives when everyone thrives. That is not just a statement of belief — it is a call to action. CCF will use every tool we have — grantmaking, advocacy, civic leadership and investment — to protect that vision and the people who make this city what it is.

I am grateful to be in this work alongside so many who care deeply about Los Angeles. Please reach out to me anytime at msantana@calfund.org.

Miguel A. Santana

President and CEO
California Community Foundation