Strategic Opportunities

In response to the proliferation of anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric at the national level in 2017, Sunlight Giving augmented funding in our Family Support program area to protect immigrant communities. Areas of focus include legal services, technical assistance and capacity building, and policy and advocacy. This work launched our Family Opportunity program area in 2022 and is now a part of our core grantmaking.

Families experiencing poverty are often exposed to additional stressors that adversely affect both mental and physical health for children and adults. In 2023, we launched the Mental Health initiative to partner with more organizations that provide families with basic needs and additional mental health support. This work is found across our program areas with several grantee partners in our Safe Spaces program.

Many families with young children who are experiencing poverty are too often excluded from community decisions that affect their lives and well-being. We launched the Community Voice initiative to support multi-issue grassroots organizing and base-building organizations working at the intersection of two or more issues identified by community members. These local groups provide a platform for families engaged in direct community work, including leadership development, agenda-setting of key issues, identifying solutions, and advocacy. This work moved to our Family Opportunity program.

In 2019, we launched the Economic Opportunity initiative with a focus on increasing the drawdown of federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) dollars, which are unrestricted and have been proven to support the healthy development of children and stability and dignity of families. This work is now part of our Family Support program.

In 2018, we launched the Housing Advocacy initiative as public interest and action in support of more housing increased amidst record legislative activity. The initiative provided additional funds to organizations that advocate for housing for low-income families, mobilize local residents, and make housing development more streamlined and accessible by providing technical expertise to change local codes and ordinances and navigate complex funding mechanisms. In 2020, this work moved into our Housing Stability program area.

The U.S. Constitution requires a full count of the country’s entire population every ten years, making the U.S. Census a critical element of American democracy. The population data collected by the Census is used to allocate billions of dollars in federal funding, including funding for vital safety net programs. In addition, state and local government agencies and nonprofits rely on data from the census to allocate funding, define where services are delivered, and support communities in need. Research shows that people who are children, homeless, lower income, English language learners, undocumented immigrants, and people of color are least likely to be enumerated properly. To that end, we collaborated with other funders in the region to ensure that the 2020 Census was inclusive and that “hard to count” populations were counted. This initiative was funded from 2018-2020.

In 2019, we launched the Regional Capacity Building initiative, initially focusing on our partners in the San Joaquin Valley,  a region experiencing a significant increase in the number of low-income families leaving the San Francisco Bay Area in pursuit of affordable housing. Additionally, we were responsive to the Regions Rise Together initiative through which community members and public officials highlighted the relative dearth of philanthropic support in the region amidst growing attention to the shifting demographics and needs of the community. We continue to offer capacity-building grants to all of our partners to address a variety of organizational and community needs. Additionally, we partner with several regional organizations that represent and support local nonprofits through our Sector Support program.