The Community Leadership Project: Applications now available!
The Community Leadership Project is offering three-year general operating support and capacity building grants to small nonprofits serving low-income communities and communities of color in the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast. Our goal with these grants is to help build sustainable organizations with three key characteristics: resilient leadership, adaptive capacity and financial stability.
Five CLP intermediaries will select approximately 55 community organizations in all. Each CLP grantee will:
- Receive $60,000 of operating support over three years ($20,000 annually)
- Have access to approximately $20,000 in additional funds over the three years of the project to build the organization's capacity
- Be able to participate in training opportunities in capacity building and leadership development (offered by CompassPoint, LeaderSpring, Nonprofit Finance Fund, Rockwood Leadership Institute or ZeroDivide) free of charge
- Participate in peer-networking with other grantees
To qualify for the program, organizations must:
- Serve primarily low-income communities and/or communities of color
- Have annual budgets of $50,000 to $500,000
- Be a 501(c)3 or have a fiscal sponsor
- Not already be receiving significant funding from Hewlett, Irvine or Packard foundations
For more information from the five regranting partners within this initiative, please visit the links below:
For organizations based in the Bay Area:
For organizations based in the San Joaquin Valley:
- California Rural Legal Assistance/Immigrant Legal Resource Center
- Alliance for California Traditional Arts
For organizations based on the Central Coast, the application period has closed, but you may find out more about the program here:



