Addressing systemic disparities is preeminent among our core strategic priorities, and it is the unifying goal of our key funding initiatives. All of our work is centered on building equity and transforming systems to create a Silicon Valley where everyone can thrive.

SVCF invests in building community power by supporting Black and Indigenous leaders and leaders of color, as well as their own and allied organizations, to support the movements they are leading.

We work to ensure that Black and Indigenous communities and communities of color, including women and children, as well as others that have faced and continue to face the harshest circumstances and conditions in Silicon Valley, have opportunities to shape and influence the decisions that impact their lives.

SVCF Grantmaking

Our grantmaking programs span three core impact areas—advancing financial stability, early childhood development and housing—as well as our broad-based Community Action Grants Program and additional select programs.

All were established in response to recommendations from our community partners. Using a racial justice and equity lens, the Community Action Grants Program identifies and supports organizations that foster greater creativity and help build community and power to promote a just, equitable and inclusive Silicon Valley.

Multiple programs relate to NEON’s focus on the systems of Power & Leadership and Income & Wealth including SVCF’s focus on advancing financial stability and investing in movement- and power-building.

Equity Forward

Equity Forward is a multi-sector movement to close the racial wealth gap in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Silicon Valley is both a region of tremendous prosperity and tremendous need; and yet there is a massive economic gap that exists along racial lines that has only widened after the COVID pandemic began.

Since one sector alone cannot solve these issues, Equity Forward brings together the region’s biggest sectors — nonprofit, higher education, government, and employers — to focus on racial inequity and change policies and practices to address systemic barriers. If we can build a stronger ecosystem of sectors working closely together to champion racial equity, we can more effectively support economic mobility for all in our communities.

We imagine a Silicon Valley in which wealth creation is the norm for all communities and every employee is paid a wage that allows them to thrive, not simply survive. We are dedicated to seeing that each of our neighbors can afford to have a safe and stable place to call home.  SVCF serves as the backbone organization supporting the Equity Forward initiative.

• Learn more about SVCF’s core impact areas and public policy work.
• Support SVCF’s Equity Forward, LatinXCEL Fund, and the California Black Freedom Fund.
• Stay up to date with SVCF’s newsletter.

Silicon Valley Community Foundation Website