The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death of the two founders, the foundation owned 90% of the non-voting shares of the Ford Motor Company. Between 1955 and 1974, the foundation sold its Ford Motor Company holdings and now plays no role in the automobile company.
Eli Broad was an American businessman and philanthropist. In June 2019, Forbes ranked him as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world and the 78th-wealthiest in the United States, with an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion. He was known for his philanthropic commitment to public K–12 education, scientific and medical research, and the visual and performing arts.
California's involvement in the American Civil War included sending gold east to support the war effort, recruiting volunteer combat units to replace regular U.S. Army units sent east, in the area west of the Rocky Mountains, maintaining and building numerous camps and fortifications, suppressing secessionist activity and securing the New Mexico Territory against the Confederacy. The State of California did not send its units east, but many citizens traveled east and joined the Union Army there, some of whom became famous.
The Pacific coast theater of the American Civil War consists of major military operations in the United States on the Pacific Ocean and in the states and Territories west of the Continental Divide. The theater was encompassed by the Department of the Pacific that included the states of California, Oregon, and Nevada, the territories of Washington, Utah, and later Idaho.
The Annenberg Foundation is a family foundation that provides funding and support to non-profit organizations in the United States and around the world. Some of the Foundation's core initiatives are the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) project, which funds many educational television shows broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) public television in the United States as well as The Annenberg Community Beach House, The Annenberg Space for Photography, Metabolic Studio, explore.org, Wallis Annenberg PetSpace and the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts.
The California Community Foundation(CCF) is a philanthropic organization located in Los Angeles, California. Foundation Center, an independent nonprofit organization, ranks it among the top 100 foundations in the nation by asset size and total giving. Among all community foundations, CCF is 5th by total giving and 7th by asset size, as of the fiscal year that ended 6/30/12.
David C. Bohnett is an American philanthropist and technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of the David Bohnett Foundation, a non-profit, grant-making organization devoted to improving society through social activism.
Gloria Charmian Duffy is a former U.S. Department of Defense official, businesswoman, social entrepreneur and nonprofit executive. Since 1996, she has been the president, CEO and a member of the Board of Governors of the Commonwealth Club of California, America's largest and oldest public forum, founded in 1903. From 2010 to 2017 she led the acquisition, financing, design, entitlements and construction of the club's first headquarters building, at 110 The Embarcadero in San Francisco. The grand opening for the club's new building took place on September 12, 2017. The building received a 2016 California Heritage Council award for historic preservation.
Irene Hirano Inouye was the founding President of the U.S.-Japan Council, a position she held ever since she helped create the organization in 2009 until her death. Hirano Inouye focused on building positive relations between the United States and Japan, and was also a leader in philanthropy, community engagement, and advancing social causes. She served on a number of prominent non-profit boards, and was chair of the Ford Foundation's board of trustees. She previously served as president and founding chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles from 1988 to 2008, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
The Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture is an American non-profit organization founded in 2003 by Thaddeus N. "Tad" Taube in Belmont, California. Its mission is to help support the survival of Jewish life and culture in the face of unprecedented global threat to the Jewish people, especially in Israel; strengthen Jewish identity and sustain Jewish heritage in the United States in the face of assimilation; celebrate current Jewish achievement in all aspects of human endeavor; and work for the reform of Jewish institutions.
A. Latham Staples is a San Diego, California, community leader, a corporate executive, and an American civil rights activist. He's the Chief Executive Officer of EXUSMED, Inc., a healthcare corporation based in La Jolla, California, and Chairman of the Empowering Spirits Foundation, Inc. (ESF), a national LGBT civil rights organization he founded in the United States.
Stewart Kwoh is an American attorney, educator, and civil rights leader. Kwoh is the founding President and Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles, formerly known as the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California (APALC).
Eric Esrailian is an American physician at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also an Emmy-nominated film producer and is active in charity and community service activities in Los Angeles. He served on the Medical Board of California from 2010 - 2011 after being appointed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar is an American scholar, academic leader, public official, jurist, and nonprofit executive currently serving as the 10th president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was previously a Justice of the Supreme Court of California and an executive branch official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford University, director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and co-chair of the U.S. Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission. His publications address problems in American public law, international affairs and international law, artificial intelligence, public health and safety law, and institutions and organizations. He was elected to the President and Fellows of Harvard College in February 2019 and serves as chair of the board of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He was born in Northern Mexico.
Geoffrey Cowan is an American lawyer, professor, author, and non-profit executive. He is currently a University Professor at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and directs the Annenberg School's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. In 2010, Cowan was named president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a position he held until July 2016. In this role, Cowan was commissioned with the task of turning the 200-acre estate of Ambassador Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore into "a venue for important retreats for top government officials and leaders in the fields of law, education, philanthropy, the arts, culture, science and medicine." Since Sunnylands reopened in 2012, Cowan has helped to arrange a series of meetings and retreats there. In 2013–14, President Barack Obama convened bilateral meetings at Sunnylands with President Xi Jinping of China and with King Abdullah II of Jordan. In 2016, President Obama hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the site, where they released the Sunnylands Declaration. Prior to his time at Sunnylands, Cowan was appointed by President Bill Clinton as Director of Voice of America.
Michael Yancey Roos is an American political strategist and former legislative leader in the California State Assembly, which he served for over 14 years. He is known for the Community Facilities District Act, alternatively known as the Mello-Roos Act.
J. Shawn Landres is a social entrepreneur and independent scholar, and local civic leader, known for applied research related to charitable giving and faith-based social innovation and community development, as well as for innovation in government and civic engagement.
Younes Nazarian was a Jewish Iranian-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. An early investor in Qualcomm, he was the Chairman of Nazarian Enterprises. He was also a major donor to charitable causes in California and Israel.
Richard "Dick" Wolf Boone was an American philanthropist who worked through both the government and social organizations to improve conditions for the poor. He had worked under the Kennedy administration in the Office of Economic Opportunity until 1965, where he had been one of the leading figures in the War on Poverty. In 1965 Boone left the government, choosing instead to continue his efforts through independent charitable organizations. Some of Boone’s most notable work was done as the director of the Field Foundation, in which he initiated many new programs to help those in poverty. He died February 26, 2014, in Santa Barbara, California, reportedly as a result of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease.
Mollie Ellen Lowery was an American advocate for homeless and mentally ill people in Los Angeles. In 1984, she co-founded the non-profit housing support center, LAMP, and in 2006 she founded an advocacy group, Housing Works.