This year, we celebrate five years of collective impact, collaboration and leadership of the California Funders for Boys and Men of Color (CFBMoC).

Together, we have invested in breaking down barriers and expanding opportunities and for boys and men of color in California, including:

• Identifying and focusing on three regions – Northern California, Sacramento / San Joaquin and Southern California.
• Through our place based strategy, CFBMoC has invested $550,000 in Northern and Southern California, with  $150,000 in aligned funding from My Brother’s Keeper to Urban Strategies Council and $3.5 million leveraged to date in Los Angeles County.
• Five California cities, three of which are sites that are supported by CFBMoC, were also selected as part of the MBK Challenge Competition as an example of the movement that is underway in the state for boys and men of color.
• In Northern California, focusing on the life course issue of workforce development and juvenile justice reform.
• Focusing on juvenile justice as its life course issue in Southern California, and investing in eight organizations to develop a blueprint to transform youth justice.
• Developing a preliminary strategy to support pipelines from K-12 to college in Sacramento / San Joaquin, including access to and completion of post-secondary education.

We applaud the work and accomplishments that have come from each of the three regions. In Los Angeles County, leaders are building partnerships with philanthropy to advance a bold agenda in shrinking the number of kids that are arrested and galvanizing support to seed youth development systems. The Bay Area is reimagining workforce systems that leave so many without opportunities for a family-sustaining wage, as well as how to put an end to juvenile detention in the region in the next five years. And, in Sacramento and San Joaquin, the priority has been educational equity, specifically access to higher education and completion of college degree programs for boys and men of color, to ensure that they are able to access postsecondary education—and, along with it, pathways to meaningful and successful lives.

In addition to direct regional investments, CFBMoC members raised $250,000 to support youth civic activism and engagement for the first-ever Youth Power Summit and Youth Power to the Polls Candidate Forum, supporting 250 young people from across the state to attend and participate in the Youth Power Summit Legislative Day at the Capitol. These included The California Endowment, The California Wellness Foundation, Sierra Health Foundation, East Bay Community Foundation, Weingart Foundation, Rosenberg Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation, San Francisco Foundation and California Community Foundation. Latino Community Foundation also contributed. Members stood alongside youth, legislators and statewide and community advocates to bring attention to the need for resources to divert young people from the juvenile justice system as Governor Jerry Brown signed the first ever Youth Reinvestment Fund, which included $37 million to support diversion programs.

In addition, we have been able to assess the field and philanthropic investments, support the development and dissemination of the Life Course Framework, and moved forward on a communications strategy to change public perception of boys and men of color by conducting statewide polling and focus groups of boys and men of color themselves.

With the dedication and support of our members, we are able to reflect on the last five years and recognize that there is still a great deal of work to be done to achieve equity and build thriving communities and opportunities for our youth. You can learn more about our collective impact in our five-year publication. We look forward to continuing to work together toward a better state for our boys and men of color.