Dear Grantees, Partners, Colleagues:

I REALLY need 20 minutes of your brain’s time. We need your input in deciding on how to spend our next billion dollars. Now, is your chance to provide input, https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TransitionPlanningSurvey.

On October 12 our Board of Directors released a visioning statement for the work of TCE beyond 2020, when the ten-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) campaign draws to a close. In that statement, which was inspired and shaped by many of you during our BHC journey, the Board affirmed its support for a healthier, inclusive California, and put forth Three Bold Ideas to build a strategy around. Those Three California Ideas were, in short: 1) People Power, 2) Reimagining Our Institutions, and 3) 21st Century “Health for All” system. We believe a racial equity lens to this work is critical. These ideas have flowed from our experience with you as grantees and as our partners.

We have also heard from a number of you about the importance of support for the development of a shared vision or narrative for a healthier, more just, and equitable California, and we welcome your reaction to the idea of a community-driven “Social Contract” for our state and nation.

We want to assess the relevance of this vision and accompanying ideas to your work as you see it, and begin to gather some wisdom about the strategies needed to get there.

This survey represents a first step for us in a participatory design process in the months ahead; we’ll also embark on smaller group regional- and issue-based strategy sessions and conversations that we hope many of you can participate in.

This survey is due by December 14, and we pledge to share the highlights and findings of this survey with you by May 2019.

In closing, I’d like to convey, on behalf of our Board, our appreciation for the work of wellness, equity, and justice that you do. If the past two years of our divided nation’s political discourse has taught us anything, it is the role that philanthropy must play in being more intentional about voice, civic participation, youth engagement, and community organizing – what we have learned as People Power -- in pursuit of a vision of wellness for our state. We need your thinking to help more this vision and ideas forward.

Robert K. Ross, M.D.
President and CEO, The California Endowment