Women’s Foundation of California

The Women’s Foundation of California is a signatory of the Meet the Moment pledge. This initiative, created by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project in partnership with the “racial equity”-focused Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) and the National Center for Family Philanthropy, seeks to bring its supporters together “in solidarity with nonprofits.” ²

The Women’s Foundation California claimed in its 2025 annual report that “raids” by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “put families at risk.” The organization also released a statement in October 2025 claiming that “ICE, Border Patrol, and soldiers do not belong in California.” The statement, which was written in both English and Spanish, instructs people to report ICE agents who visit homes and workplaces, and lists several “rapid response hotlines” to call if people witness, or are being detained by, ICE officers. ^{3 4}

History

The Women’s Foundation of California (WFC) is a left-wing feminist grantmaking foundation located in San Francisco. The organization was unofficially founded in 1979 by a small group of feminist activists during meetings at the Women’s Building in San Francisco, California. Initially named the Women’s Foundation, the organization became official in 1980 after it received its first investment. ⁵

The Women’s Foundation partnered with the Ms. Foundation, Astraea Lesbian Foundation, and Mama Cash to establish the National Network of Women’s Funds, which later became known as the Women’s Funding Network. ⁶

The Women’s Foundation partnered with the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation in 1994 to create the Women’s Fund of California. The two organizations merged in 2003 to become the Women’s Foundation of California. ⁶

WFC was one of the principal funders for California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, an organization founded in 2004 that advocates for abortion and other left-of-center economic and social policies in California, taking an “intersectional” approach that views economic and social issues as interconnected. WFC was also the first institutional funder of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, an organization founded by and named for United Farm Workers labor union activist Dolores Huerta. ⁵

The Women’s Foundation of California created the Legislative Action Fund in 2011 to support the Women’s Policy Institute, a yearly program of WFC that trains a small group of women on California’s legislative process. WFC also sent 7,966 letters to California legislators and made more than 50 “legislative visits” to push for left-of-center policies. ⁵

WFC also launched its Philanthropy and Public Policy Institute in 2017; partnered with Philanthropy California, the Blue Shield of California Foundation, the California Endowment, and Foundation CHANEL to create the Gender Justice Funders in 2018; and introduced seven left-wing feminist policies via the Women’s Policy Institute in 2019. ⁶

Activities

Meet the Moment

The Women’s Foundation California is a signatory of the Meet the Moment pledge. This initiative seeks to bring its supporters together “in solidarity with nonprofits.” ⁵

Meet the Moment was created by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, an education and advocacy organization that encourages and supports the trust-based philanthropy approach developed by the defunct Whitman Institute, which encourages grantmakers to put more trust in the nonprofit organizations they fund. It is also in partnership with the “racial equity”-focused Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) and the National Center for Family Philanthropy. ²

The group claims that the political climate could pose risks to nonprofits through reductions in funding, legal concerns, and lack of staff. ²

Advocacy Statements

The Women’s Foundation California claimed in its 2025 annual report that “raids” by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “put[s] families at risk.” The annual report also claimed that “trans and gender-expansive communities faced renewed assaults on their rights.” ³

The organization also released a statement in October 2025 announcing that “ICE, Border Patrol, and soldiers do not belong in California.” The statement, which was written in both English and Spanish, instructs people to report ICE agents who visit homes and workplaces, and lists several “rapid response hotlines” to call if people witness, or are being detained by, ICE officers. ⁴

The organization released another statement, titled “No Borders. No Binaries. No Silence.,” in June 2025. The statement claimed that America is witnessing “arrests and militarized violence at protests,” adding that it is the “the choreography of authoritarian power,” and a “strategy of suppression.” The statement also claims that “movements are born from resistance” against “police, borders, binaries, and silence.” ⁷

The Women’s Foundation California was also a signatory of an open letter released on November 3, 2023, less than a month after the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks, in which when members of the terrorist group Hamas crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip and killed over 1,400 people while taking over 230 hostages back into Gaza, including Americans, from Funders for a Ceasefire Now, a coalition of individual donors, philanthropic organizations, and other foundations advocating for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. ^{8 9 10} The letter called for an immediate ceasefire, the commencement of humanitarian aid, and the end of U.S and European funding to the State of Israel. ⁸

Financials

The organization had a total revenue of approximately $10.4 million in 2022, just under $11.7 million in 2023, and just over $9 million in 2024. The organization’s total functional expenses amounted to around $10.1 million in 2022, $14.3 million in 2023, and around $9.7 million in 2024. ¹¹

Funding

The California Endowment is a left-leaning grantmaking organization that bills itself as the largest private health foundation in California with three billion dollars in assets. The organization has made 35 grants with a value of approximately $6.9 million to the Women’s Foundation of California. ^{12 13}

The Ford Foundation is a grantmaking organization that, for much of its history, was the largest foundation in the United States. The Ford Foundation has given a great deal of money to left-wing and center-left organizations since its founding, including a total of 15 grants to the Women’s Foundation of California worth $4.1 million between 2006 and 2025. The grant descriptions show that the grants were made to support WFC’s Culture Change Collaborative Fund, Women’s Economic Security Campaign, Environmental Justice and Reproductive Justice Collaborative, and Women’s Social Justice Collaborative. ¹⁴

The Atlantic Philanthropies, primarily based in Bermuda, were a collection of principally overseas organizations founded by businessman Charles “Chuck” Feeney in 1982. Atlantic Philanthropies has completed its grantmaking and officially closed its doors in October 2020. It granted the Women’s Foundation of California $900,000 in 2009 to support the organization’s “Older Women’s Advocacy Leadership Development,” and another $335,000 in 2011 for the implementation of an “Elder Women’s Policy Institute.”  ^{15 16 17}

The Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) is a grantmaking foundation created by Blue Shield of California, an insurance company that was founded and operated as a nonprofit until California revoked its tax-exempt status in 2014. The foundation granted WCF a total of just under $7.65 million via ten grants from 2009 to 2020. ¹⁸

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (also known as the Hewlett Foundation) is a private grantmaking foundation that has program areas in education, environment, global development and population, performing arts, Madison Initiative, cyber, effective philanthropy, San Francisco Bay Area, and special projects. The Hewlett Foundation has granted WFC a total of $1,500,000 in the form of seven grants between 2006 and 2022. Said grants were used to support WFC’s Culture Change Collaborative Fund, Women’s Policy Institute, and its Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights Program. ^{19 20}

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation created by David Packard, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard, in 1964. The foundation provided two separate grants of $200,000 to WFC in 2020 and 2022. All grants made to WFC were labeled under the foundation’s “reproductive health” program. ²¹

The Levi Strauss Foundation is a left-of-center grantmaking organization located in San Francisco, California. It is the corporate philanthropic arm of, and primarily funded by, clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. The foundation provided WFC with a grant of $130,000 to support its Women’s Policy Institute. ²²

The Walter and Elise Haas Fund is one of a number of private foundations associated with members of the Haas family that has been involved in the operation of Levi Strauss and Company. The fund provided the Women’s Foundation of California with a grant of $25,000 in 2016, another grant of $25,000 in 2018, a small grant of $546 in 2022, and a grant of $10,000 in 2023. ²³

The Rosenberg Foundation is a left-of-center grantmaking foundation established in 1935 and based in San Francisco, California. The foundation lists WFC under its current grantees and has provided the organization with $6,000 as part of its Economic Security of Working Families program. ²⁴

The David Bohnett Foundation is a grant-making foundation supporting LGBT interests, technology, Los Angeles-specific grants, gun control, animal liberation, and support for left-of-center programs in higher education. The foundation has made three “general operating support” grants to WFC, one for $500 in 2020, another for $1,000 in 2021, and another for $2,500 in 2022. The foundation also granted WFC $2,500 in 2024 for “leadership transition” and another grant of $2,500 for general support in 2025. ^{25 26}

The Women’s Foundation of California notes that it has received “institutional gifts” from other organizations, including the Bank of America, Akonadi Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Microsoft, New Venture Fund, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund (1630 Fund). ¹

Grantmaking

According to its 2025 annual report, the Women’s Foundation California invested $3.3 million into 77 organizations across the United States. This came in the form of 112 grants across various issues, including “gender-based violence” and “reproductive justice.” ³