Announcing Investing in an Equitable Future: A Project Supporting Grassroots Movements to Advance Public Funding Equity Across California

“Follow the money.” It’s a well-known quote from the film “All the President's Men” used to trace where and who holds political and economic power. At Prevention Institute (PI), we advocate for this adage: “Direct the money.”  Across California, community-based power building organizations (CBPOs) are organizing residents to ensure public dollars are invested in community-defined solutions to health inequities. In contribution to this growing movement, PI is proud to announce the launch of Investing in an Equitable Future, a project supporting grassroots advocacy and power building efforts to enact, design, and implement equitable public funding programs and infrastructure investments to improve conditions for health, safety, and wellbeing in California communities that are racially diverse and have been historically excluded from investment. This project is funded by The California Endowment’s (TCE) Social Bond, driven by TCE’s commitment to build power for a health system rooted in racial justice that promotes the wellbeing of all Californians.

Investing in an Equitable Future supports 3 CBPOs to “bake” equity into every stage of a public funding program−from design and implementation to oversight and evaluation. This approach has the potential to strengthen governmental policies and procedures, helping ensure that resources and power are more fairly distributed and that investments improve material conditions in communities that have long been excluded from investment and government decision-making.

Why focus on public funding and revenue streams?

At PI, we’ve worked across local and statewide efforts to embed equity into public funding. This includes securing equity set-asides in new parks and recreation funding in Los Angeles County, advocating for cannabis tax revenues to support racial equity, healing, and youth leadership, and piloting community-driven investments in safety and wellbeing.

From the beginning of the policy design process, new revenue streams should be allocated to the communities with the greatest need. And importantly, equity work doesn’t end when a policy is passed. Once funding programs are enacted, they can adopt co-governance models that give community members closest to the issues a strategic role in shaping investment priorities and tracking progress. This strengthens both community voice and accountability and helps ensure that program implementation adheres to the policy’s original intent.

Prevention Institute held our first convening with local partners to lay the foundations for funding equity campaign work.

On June 23, PI hosted our first convening of our local partners at our Oakland Headquarters. For the project’s launch, we sought to connect and build momentum alongside our local partners. These early gatherings set the stage for collective learning and strategic planning—turning our broader vision for equitable investment into actionable, community-led strategies. Throughout the convening, participants talked through practical ways to secure new public funding that support health equity and racial justice. They shared successes and challenges in advocating for equitable funding policies and organizing residents to direct public investments. We walked through three key phases of funding advocacy:

1. Planning and designing the funding stream with community at the center.
2. Launching campaigns to win funding commitments.
3. Overseeing implementation of the funding program to ensure revenues are used as intended.

We homed in on the planning and design phase, exploring key strategies to assess the right funding model and embed equity in the design of policies and programs. Together, we highlighted community co-design approaches, the importance of narrative and messaging strategies, and considered the political challenges of moving funding equity forward in this moment. The convening was a launchpad to identify the types of funding models each local partner may want to advance in pursuit of equitable public investment. And in addition to discussing actionable strategies to advance funding priorities, participants  appreciated the opportunity to learn from one another's' experiences and expertise.

Meet our Partners

Investing in an Equitable Future resources CBPOs in 3 locales over 3 years to support their efforts to establish revenue streams that direct public investment towards community-defined solutions. Our local partners have deep experience building power with residents to address pressing health inequities through policies that center health equity and racial justice. We are excited about this partnership and the opportunity to scale grassroots advocacy to cede new, equitable models in public funding.

• Community Leaders Coalition (CLC) - CLC is a coalition of agencies and community leaders that train and mobilize community members to collectively advocate for the needs of vulnerable populations throughout Napa County. When American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) investments were made to support local recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, CLC organized their partners and residents to ensure Napa’s ARPA allocation was used to address their community’s unmet needs, including mental health, homelessness, child care, and food access. Building on their budget advocacy experience, CLC, in partnership with one of their core coalition members On the Move, will launch “On The Verge: Building Latine Power,” a leadership development cohort where they will work with 15 Latine residents to build their leadership and grassroots organizing capacity to influence public budgeting and investment processes.
• Imperial Valley Justice & Equity (IV Equity) - Originally formed as a volunteer mutual aid and advocacy group in the early months of the pandemic, IV Equity mobilizes their predominantly immigrant, farmworker community across a range of issues including healthcare access and extreme heat resilience. The Imperial Valley is a binational region spanning the border between the U.S. and Mexico with its own unique environmental and sociopolitical dynamics. In 2022, IV Equity engaged in public education on SB 125, a bill that established an excise tax on lithium extraction in the region. A year later, IV Equity played a critical role in public education on SB 797, a bill that established an oversight committee for the excise tax. Demand for lithium has grown exponentially since it fuels batteries and electric vehicles, and SB 125 and SB 797 aim to direct investment to working-class communities in the Imperial Valley who will bear the brunt of the impacts caused by lithium extraction and industrialization in the region.
• The Kennedy Commission - A collaborative, community-based non-profit organization that works to create the systemic change required to increase affordable housing opportunities and housing stability through advocacy and policy. The Kennedy Commission aims to increase policies that facilitate equitable investment for lower income families in marginalized communities of Orange County (OC) by working with resident leaders, stakeholders, decision makers, and collaborative partner organizations. In 2024, the Commission led a housing equity campaign to ensure that all OC cities created new affordable opportunities for low-income families. As part of that effort, the Commission partnered with the Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD) and the Orange County Congregation Community Organization (OCCCO) to mobilize residents and help secure an inclusionary housing ordinance in the city of Anaheim, helping increase access to affordable housing for low-income, working families who struggle to remain housed. The Kennedy Commission, in collaboration with their local partners, will continue to develop campaigns to increase housing equity through key public investments.

PI looks forward to collaborating with our local partners to advance new models of equitable investment, directing resources towards California's racially diverse communities and helping build grassroots momentum to utilize public funding to advance health equity and racial justice.

For more information about Investing in an Equitable Future, contact Vince Leus at vince [at] preventioninstitute.org (vince[at]preventioninstitute[dot]org). For media inquiries, contact communications [at] preventionInstitute.org (communications[at]preventionInstitute[dot]org).

Funding for this project is provided by The California Endowment.