CIELO Fund committee members at the 2025 celebration
The Cultivating Inland Empire Latino Opportunity (CIELO) Fund at IECF has announced more than $310,000 in grants for its 2026 funding cycle, distributing awards across 22 organizations serving Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
This round of grantmaking carries added significance: it pushes the CIELO Fund’s total investment past $1.7 million since its 2022 launch. That figure spans grantmaking, research, narrative-change work, and scholarships, and represents more than 120 grants to regional nonprofits and more than 300 scholarship awards to local students.
The 2026 grantees are working across a wide range of focus areas, including education, housing, civil rights, health care, legal support, and economic opportunity.
Codex Creation Committee, a 2026 CIELO Fund grantee
“This year’s grantmaking is focused on moving resources where they can make a real difference for the residents of the Inland Empire,” said Jesse Melgar, IECF Board Chair and CIELO Fund Founder and Chair. “Surpassing $1.7 million in total investments since the CIELO Fund launched reflects an intentional strategy by our leadership committee to back organizations that are meeting urgent needs and building long-term power and opportunity in every corner of our region. The groups we’re supporting are doing the hard work daily to expand access to health care, education, legal support, and economic opportunity. This is critical work at a critical time and we thank our grantee partners for all they do to make our region better.”
Alongside direct grantmaking, the CIELO Fund has continued investing in research and media partnerships that shape how the region is understood and covered. Its most recent research collaboration, produced with UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute, examines the structural barriers that Latino workers in the Inland Empire continue to face despite being central to the region’s economy. The Fund also continues to support KVCR’s IE Latino Voices segment, which it helped co-design and launch in 2023, and an ongoing partnership with the LA Times’ Latino vertical, De Los, to support in-depth coverage of the Inland Empire.
“We’re really proud of what the CIELO Fund has achieved over the past four years,” said IECF President and CEO Michelle Decker. “This happened because donors of all kinds, big foundations and local families alike, believed in the vision our Board set. Their combined support through IECF has strengthened Latino-led and Latino-serving organizations across the region, and the Fund shows how powerful it is when a community invests in its own future.”
Launched in 2022 as a Signature Fund marking IECF’s 80th anniversary, the CIELO Fund was built to invest in organizations, initiatives, and ideas that are led by and serve Latinos in the Inland Empire. Four years in, that commitment continues to grow.
Meet the 2026 Grantees:
- Ives Torres Foundation
- The Microenterprise Collaborative of Inland Southern California
- Galán Cultural Center
- Providers Need Care
- Love and Nurture Initiative
- Inland Empire Prism Collective
- Codex Creation Committee
- Coachella Valley Parents
- Danza Azteca Citaltonac
- Consejo De Federaciones Mexicana (COFEM)
- Rotary Club of Coachella East
- HERENCIA Mariachi Academy
- Highlanders Boxing Club
- Centro Del Immigrante Inc.
- Huerta Del Valle
- IAMGIFTED Foundation
- Corona Relief Organization
- Arcoiris Collective Learning
- LULAC of Riverside
- San Gorgonio Pass Community Foundation
- Casa Blanca Home of Neighborly Services
- FAME Institute
To support the CIELO Fund or learn more, visit iegives.org/cielofund.
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