Statewide Steering Committee
Smart Growth California is led by an active steering committee of representatives from twelve leading funding institutions including: California Community Foundation, The California Endowment, California Wellness Foundation, Enterprise Community Partners, NextGen Policy Center, Resources Legacy Fund, The San Diego Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, The Seed Fund, Sierra Health Foundation, the Water Foundation and an anonymous funder. Meet our Steering Committee members here.
The steering committee sets the overall strategic direction in order to facilitate aligned grantmaking and action for the Smart Growth California funder community. Members work together to identify and address priorities at the local, regional, and state levels.
Currently, the Statewide Steering Committee is working with partners from the ClimatePlan network to identify and collaborate on opportunities to respond to shifting priorities in common core issues (transportation, housing, climate, etc.) as they relate to the racialized impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The impacts of COVID as a public health and economic crisis will play out across the state over the coming years and will impact the progress and direction of work that has been underway for many years related to the priority issues of SGC funders and their grantees.
The Steering Committee, and all of SGC’s workgroups, are committed to having direct and honest conversations about the impacts of white supremacy and racialized violence on the issues and communities our funders care about. For example, access to parks is not enough if black and brown folks do not feel safe in those spaces, whether due to police presence or other acts of racism, such as the May 2020 incident in NYC’s Central Park where a white woman called the police on a black man who was bird watching. These instances remind us that access does not merely mean the existence of a resource but the ability to safely use that resource.
