It’s yet another milestone for the Foundation and the fund, whose financial support will buoy the efforts of 22 organizations across the region. The annual grants will further expand support for housing, education, civil rights, and well-being in Latino communities across the area. 

“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 in 2022 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.” 

He added that the groups the fund supports 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.”  

Overall, this round, the CIELO Fund’s total investment in grantmaking, research, narrative‑change efforts, and scholarships has resulted in more than 120 grants to nonprofits in 

Riverside and San Bernardino counties have received more than 300 scholarship awards to local students since it launched.  

“This happened because donors of all kinds, big foundations and local families alike, believed in the vision our Board set,” said Michelle Decker, President & CEO of IECF. “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.” 

Behind the scenes, CIELO Fund commissioned several reports from leading California universities to better understand the challenges facing the region, including its Latino residents.  

The latest report, which was partnered with UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute, revealed the underlying realities behind the numbers: how Latino workers drive the region’s economy yet continue to face persistent structural barriers. 

Angel Rodriguez, co-founder of the CIELO Fund, says that many people in the leadership committee are either from the Inland Empire and/or have established their careers in the region.                                                                                                                       

“I grew up here, went to school here, and built my career here,” Rodriguez said. “I know what it feels like when someone opens a door for you. CIELO is our way of opening more doors for students, families, and organizations across the Inland Empire.” 

That is essential on this side of the mid-2020s, when everything from federal funding cuts and divisive politics continues to be key issues to confront and surf through. 

“People are doing their best, but the cost of housing, food, health care, and education keeps getting harder,” Rodriguez said. “These grants support the local organizations people turn to when they need help, hope, or a path forward.” 

The 2026 grantmaking also included media partnerships to elevate positive regional narratives through original and effective programming. The CIELO Fund will continue to support KVCR’s IE Latino Voices segment which it helped co-design and launch in 2023. 

Additionally, the fund will continue supporting an innovative partnership with the LA Times’ Latino vertical, DeLos, to maintain special coverage of the IE. 

The 2026 CIELO Fund grantees include a vast array of vital nonprofits in the area. From Codex Creation Committee, which empowers communities by fostering educational opportunities in art, culture, health, and wellness, to Corona Relief Organization, an intrepid charity serving underserved communities with essential resources, the fund’s impact stretches far and wide. 

Other grantees include: Ives Torres Foundation, The Microenterprise Collaborative of Inland Southern California, Coachella Valley Parents, Danza Azteca Citaltonac, Rotary Club of Coachella East, Highlanders Boxing Club, and Casa Blanca Home of Neighborly Service. (Check the CIELO Fund page for a full list of grantees.) 

“The Inland Empire is full of talent, heart, and ambition,” Rodriguez said. “CIELO helps put resources behind the people already doing the work to make this region stronger.” 

CIELO’s support also reaches students directly. In 2026, 33 students applied for a CIELO scholarship, and every one of them will receive $1,500 to help pursue their degree. This is the fourth year in a row CIELO has been able to support every student who applied. In recent years, CIELO has provided $300,000 in scholarships to more than 200 Inland Empire students. 

“CIELO is about investing in people who are already doing the work,” Rodriguez said. “That includes local organizations serving our communities every day and students who are working hard to build a better future for themselves, their families, and our region.”

Learn more about the CIELO Fund at iegives.org/cielofund

This story originally appeared in the Press Enterprise, June 2026.

Stay up to date on all the good work we’re doing through the power of philanthropy. Sign up for our eNewsletter, Philanthropy Matters, today.

The post Grantee Spotlight: CIELO Fund invests ‘in people who are already doing the work’ in the Inland Empire appeared first on IECF.

As Latino Heritage Month plays out, the Inland Empire Community Foundation (IECF) announces that the CIELO Fund has raised more than $3 million since its launch in 2022. 

The fund designed to support Latino-led and Latino-serving organizations and initiatives throughout the Inland Empire has now invested nearly $1.5 million into the region’s Latino community through grantmaking, scholarships, narrative-change initiatives, and original research.  

Add $1.2 million in grant awards to more than 100-plus grassroots organizations and $300,000 in scholarships distributed to Latino students and overall, these efforts can be seen as unique as they are ambitious.  

To ensure the vital grantmaking work continues for generations, the CIELO Leadership and Grant Committee also established the CIELO Endowed Fund in 2025 with an initial investment of $500,000, a lasting resource made possible through the generosity of many donors over the years and the visionary support of the James Irvine Foundation. 

“Our goal is simple: grow the CIELO Fund’s impact and secure the resources that keep this work ongoing for years to come,” said Angel Rodriguez, a co-founder of the CIELO Fund and the Associate Vice Chancellor of Associate Vice Chancellor of Government Relations and Strategic Communications for the San Bernardino Community College District. “Our Leadership and Grantmaking Committee took a major step toward this goal by establishing the CIELO Endowed Fund, seeded with $500,000, to ensure lasting support for the community organizations and student scholars shaping a more just, inclusive, and thriving Inland Empire.” 

But that was only the start. 

Rodriguez believes that building a lasting legacy will take continued investment from the people who call the region home and want to make it better.  

“Raising more than $2 million in our first two years is more than a milestone,” said Jesse Melgar, IECF Chair and Founding Chair of the CIELO Fund. “It’s a testament to the resilience, dedication, and unwavering commitment of our grantees, and the determination of our scholarship recipients, who are transforming lives and communities across Riverside and San Bernardino counties.” 

Those organizations and students are charting a new path for the region’s future, in fact, laying the foundation for what Melgar believes can be a more “just and equitable future.” 

It will take unity, Rodriguez added, noting that the stewards of the fund will make sure the work continues for generations to come. 

“Our goal is to grow the CIELO Fund’s impact and make sure it lasts,” he said. “The future of this region depends on people like us who call it home and want to make it more inclusive and stronger for everyone who lives and works here.  

“When we stop investing in each other, we lose the potential that makes the Inland Empire thrive,” he added. “Supporting the CIELO Fund helps keep this a place of opportunity.” 

Brie Griset Smith, CSPG, Chief Development Officer at IECF, believes that the early support IECF received has truly laid the foundation for the CIELO Fund’s success.  

“Now we’re harnessing that momentum to bring in more donors to uplift Latino communities and spotlight the opportunities ahead in the Inland Empire,” she said. 

Elizabeth Romero, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Governmental and Community Relations at UC Riverside, is quick to note the importance of the fund in an era of growing divisiveness. 

“Inland Latino residents are experiencing fear like we haven’t seen in decades based on recent federal actions,” she said. “We are witnessing a growing mental health crisis among students and workers who feel they might be targeted because of how they look, how they speak, or where they work.” 

“Yet, even in this moment of uncertainty, we are also seeing something powerful—a renewed sense of unity, purpose, and resilience across our community,” she added. “The energy, passion, and support we have received remind us that we are not alone, and that when we stand together, we can turn fear into action and isolation into hope.” 

Building a lasting culture of philanthropy involved shrewd planning. Partnerships were key.  

The fund’s $3 million milestone came in thanks to investments from the California Endowment, the Weingart Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation, the California Healthcare Foundation, Chavez Family Foundation, the S.L. Gimbel Foundation, and strong support from dozens of corporate and institutional donors. 

The CIELO Fund also released a new report produced by the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, looking at Key Facts and Worker Voices: The Latino Workforce in California’s Inland Empire.  

Another significant alliance is a partnership with KVCR/NPR on the popular IE Latino Voices radio segment. A collaboration with CalMatters and the Los Angeles Times’ Latino vertical, De Los, further spotlights Latino causes across the region. 

Meanwhile, the CIELO Fund Leadership and Grantmaking Committee consists of Inland Latino leaders who live and work in the region. This includes university presidents, college district chancellors, several vice chancellors, community-based organizational leaders, leaders in academia, and corporate leaders.  

“We know the impact of this moment will be felt for many years, even decades,” Romero said. “That is precisely why the work of the CIELO Fund will continue to matter—not only to respond to today’s challenges, but to help build a stronger, more compassionate Inland Empire for generations to come.” 

For more information, visit iegives.org/cielofund   

Stay up to date on all the good work we’re doing through the power of philanthropy. Sign up for our eNewsletter, Philanthropy Matters, today.

The post CIELO Fund hits $3 million milestone, advances opportunities for Latinos appeared first on IECF.

And all by using creativity and gardening as a powerful tool for mental health. 

By cultivating gardens, Chinampas will nurture and maintain a holistic well-being and knowledge of ecosystems based on the seasons and, in many ways, one’s cultural heritage. 

“This is one of the first grants that we received,” said Sahara Daniela Huazano, Executive Director and CEO of Chinampas. “It’s more like, ‘thank you for believing in us.’  But the other co-founders and I have more than 10 years of nonprofit work and social organizing here in the community.

“Starting this nonprofit was really an opportunity for us to explore social justice and mental health through a different lens,” she added. 

It’s a bold endeavor, and one filled with a lot of heart and passion. 

“We’re a local non-profit from people born and raised in Mecca,” Huazano said. “Gardening is a powerful tool for mental health, and we want to share this knowledge with people here. It’s taking the therapeutic process, which is within four walls—when you see a therapist, for instance—and taking it out in nature, in the community.” 

There is an ancestral piece to the endeavour, too. 

“I look at my own heritage,” Huazano said. “My parents are Mexican and Mexican-American. This is about how to address mental health issues through the lens of nature or the psychology from back then. It’s about tapping into our roots and removing the barriers for people to access those roots.” 

Chinampas, she added, is a Spanish word indicating, “a small floating garden” from Mesoamerica. 

“This was before the Aztecs, before the Mayans. It’s a floating garden that was built in a swamp.” 

Meeting in the chinampas, then, can be very beneficial, for in this gathering ground, tensions can be eased, and connections can be made. 

“We see today that young people in our local schools are experiencing higher levels of anxiety, higher levels of harming themselves, and we have to ask, ‘how can mental health meet the demand?’” Huazano said. “We see that there’s a lot of great mental health providers in the county, but there’s still much more ground to cover. We need more therapists; we need more ancestral knowledge keepers in our community to be part of this process for youth.  

“That’s why we’re like, ‘Let’s meet in chinampas,” she added. “Let’s see and integrate the knowledge that we have through this lens to break the barriers and increase access to diverse forms of mental health.” 

It’s fitting then that history tells us that chinampas could transform a swamp into a fertile lake.

Huazano, who proposed the name for the nonprofit, said the chinampas are still around today, and used all over the world. 

“We can create our own gardens in our own homes, in our own minds, but this is really about expanding from the traditional community garden setting, like the urban versions, which is away from your home, and more into accessible plants that are close to you,” she said. 

“In many ways, it’s about creating your own well-being through plants.” 

Learn more at chinampasca.org. 

This story originally appeared in the Desert Sun, August 2025.

Stay up to date on all the good work we’re doing through the power of philanthropy. Sign up for our eNewsletter, Philanthropy Matters, today.

The post Grantee Spotlight: Nonprofit start-up ‘Chinampas’ sprouts compelling mental health initiative appeared first on IECF.

In August 2023, Tropical Storm Hilary ripped through Coachella Valley, causing widespread flooding and damage, with the City of Palm Springs recording historic rainfall. In the aftermath, assistance came on many fronts and for many months.

To that end, a Build Coachella Fund grant via Inland Empire Community Foundation became a valuable resource for the nonprofit TODEC. Established in the early 1980s, the organization provides a lifeline for immigrants and their families in the region by offering advocacy, legal services, community organizing, civic engagement, and much more.

“With the grant, we concentrated our efforts in deploying assistance to farm workers that were impacted economically,” said Luz Gallegos, Executive Director of the organization. “During that time, there was a backlash from COVID and then Tropical Storm Hillary washed away our fields in the region. The only safety net that our farm workers have is their jobs. So, when that gets impacted, so do their families, and the economy.”

Gallegos said that the grant allowed TODEC to provide one-time financial assistance for workers who were impacted so they could purchase groceries and the like. 

“This is where the greatest impact was,” she added. “We paid it forward.”

TODEC has been doing that ever since its humble beginnings.

More than 40 years ago, Luz Maria and Antonio Ayala were new Americans hoping to build their lives in Perris, Calif. They had worked diligently to organize with the community in Michoacan, Mexico, and eventually with the United Farmworkers and Civil Rights Movement in Los Angeles before moving to the rural Inland Empire to grow their family.

It was at this time that they began seeing a wide range of injustices impacting their neighbors in the Inland Empire—from how they were improperly treated by employers and profiled by police to being ignored by politicians and watched by immigration. The duo founded TODEC to assist fellow recent immigrants with various aspects of American life, including learning English, establishing citizenship, and creating new connections in their new communities.

“We didn’t have so many protections back in the 1980 as we do now as in the state and in the country,” Gallegos said. “Some of the farmers didn’t want to pay their workers so they would just call Border Patrol and they would deport them. My parents founded the organization because they were living those realities along with our community, and it was important to organize and advocate for this farm worker community.”

Elevating their stories and voices became key when sharing information with elected officials.

“Out of that struggle, TODEC was founded,” she said. “Since then, the organization has grown to be a regional hub for immigrants in the Inland Empire, from Blythe and Eastern Riverside County, all the way to the High Desert and San Bernardino County.”

Today, TODEC’s reach is considerable. Civic engagement and voting remain significant initiatives. To that end, TODEC mobilizes locals to vote and be heard at the polls. 

Other programs and events stand out, too. TODEC’s Annual Festival Monarca y Feria Educativa, for instance, celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, empowering thousands of community members throughout the event, which featured entertainment, advocacy, and valuable connection with community members.

As the group moves deeper into 2025, Gallegos and the team are keeping their eye on shifts occurring in today’s political climate.

“Right now, more than ever, because of the political climate, fear of immigration amongst our farm workers, especially those that are undocumented, has risen,” she said. “We’ve had families report that they have not left their house since election day.”

She noted that some of those apprehensions include fears of raids and immigration patrols.

“That’s why we provide free community education, immigration legal resources, and legal support so that the community members know their constitutional rights,” Gallegos said. “With the constant changes in policies coming from the federal level, we want to make sure that our community is well-equipped and well-informed.”

Learn more at todec.org.

This article originally appeared in the Desert Sun, April 2025.

Stay up to date on all the good work we’re doing through the power of philanthropy. Sign up for our eNewsletter, Philanthropy Matters, today.

The post Grantee Spotlight: Grant allows TODEC to continue advocating for immigrants appeared first on IECF.

  From the communities of Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage to Thousand Palms and Thermal, El Informador Del Valle has long been making an impact. But a recent grant from Inland Empire Community Foundation through the Desert Community News Fund is providing the Spanish-language newspaper more opportunities to expand.

“We’re going to strengthen our local and regional media ecosystem in the community,” said Héctor Félix Jr. of the funding. “We want to provide even more news and information to all the rural areas in the Riverside County, especially on the east side where the county ends or begins.

Félix’s father, Héctor Félix, Sr., founded the publication in 1988. Over time, it morphed into a significant go-to known for its investigative journalism. In its heyday, Héctor Félix, Sr. was recognized for his critical reporting chops, particularly on various drug cartels.

“I’ve been collaborating and helping out the family-owned business since I was a little boy,” Félix said. “Some of my most vivid memories were being in our own print shop. We had our employees actually print our weekly newspaper. 

“We used to have to use a typewriter to type up all the articles,” he added.

Don’t forget photos. At the time, long before today’s modern tech advances, photos were developed in a darkroom.

“We had to cut and paste pretty much everything back then,” Félix added. “The big old newspapers then were pretty much templates, and we had the big desk with the light underneath so we could look at all the newspaper graphics. So, this newspaper formed a lot of my memories as a kid. This is what makes me happy—providing newspapers to the community.”

The publication’s reach is still vast with news reporting stretching well into Coachella and Mecca. To that end, it remains one of those rarities in these modern times—a locally owned newspaper with strong ties to its community and a deep  devotion to sharing news and information to its readers.

Without corporate pressures, which typically come with a bottom-line price tag, Félix is ever optimistic about the road ahead heading into 2025 and beyond. One look at the publication’s website is proof of that as there’s a significant portal to list community events and even entertainment news and notices.

Chances are that residents as east as Salton Sea have picked up the newspaper, too, as it is among the long list of distribution points.

Overall, El Informador Del Valle continues to build on the strong foundation of its creator and Félix, its first-generation leader now, hopes to steer it successfully to new heights.

“I want people to know that we’re still actively providing local news, information, topics, and sports,” Félix said. “And that it’s a free publication you can find in all the Hispanic or Latino stores. We’re very much looking to the future now.”

Learn more at elinformadordelvalle.com.

This article originally appeared in the Desert Sun, January 2024.

Stay up to date on all the good work we’re doing through the power of philanthropy. Sign up for our eNewsletter, Philanthropy Matters, today.

The post Grantee Spotlight: El Informador Del Valle receives a boost from recent grant appeared first on IECF.