We are living through a time of unusual volatility and uncertainty. And as this unsettling environment continues to shift beneath our feet, foundations and nonprofits of all kinds are reminded how the support systems for the millions of Americans we exist to help are fragile and under unprecedented stress.
The philanthropic world is helping by doing what it was principally designed to do — delivering grants to organizations so they can provide essential services to people in need. But in this moment, that support alone is simply not enough. Foundations must adapt and do more to help the missions of our grantee partners remain (or become) resilient for the long term. (Our 2025 Annual Report describes how we’ve begun to meet this moment.)
With our collective experience running foundation operations, grantmaking, finances and programming, the three of us have been reflecting on how the Foundation is using its resources creatively to help social service providers withstand this year’s series of shocks — not only the deep reductions in federal spending already enacted and the additional cuts on the way, but also the unjust treatment of immigrants and other historically marginalized communities – and to reimagine a better future.
Although not often the focus of news reports, these changes are especially disruptive to the systems that support older people. We are pleased to have our president and CEO Rigo Saborio guiding the Foundation toward greater advocacy and community-driven grantmaking. Helping our grantee partners build more capacity to persevere is now central to our strategy to ensure every older person in California — indeed, every one of us — can thrive as we age.
What We’re Doing Differently
As the year began, we launched a planning process to explore and hopefully boost the resilience of our partner organizations and the field. We began by listening, seeking the perspectives of older adults with diverse experiences and backgrounds, as well as insights from our grantees, community partners, and others invested in this work. In response, we embraced our role as convener and capacity builder to plan, with our partners’ needs in mind, a gathering of representatives from 50 organizations for a day of building consensus, identifying new avenues for collaboration, and sharing concerns and ideas for action.
In participating with our grantee partners in this way, we saw a group at once exhausted, anxious, and determined. They made clear that bolstering their resilience for the people and organizations delivering vital care to older persons would require not only a coordinated effort but additional support for legal consulting, advocacy, and communications. They let us know that learning from others in similar situations provides a sense of community and grounding that reinforces their commitment to moving forward. The need for this kind of gathering remains — and the response to it was so positive — that we are making this an annual event.
Building on our commitment to community-driven and trust-based grantmaking, we have also supported resilience by providing our grantees with new flexibility to reallocate their Foundation funds to cover general operating expenses or meet other unanticipated challenges. We trust that our partners best understand not only their communities but also how to prioritize their needs.
And we continue to leverage our popular and successful four-year collaboration with Catchafire, which matches nonprofits — whether they need specialized help for a few hours or a major initiative — with professionals willing to volunteer their talents as marketers, fundraisers, strategic planners, graphic designers, web developers, IT specialists, and more. More than 90 aging service providers with more than 180 projects of all sizes, equivalent to 46 work weeks of donated hours, have already benefited from this partnership, expanding their capacity to remain nimble and responsive in the face of rapid change.
Archstone Foundation’s resources are small compared to the needs in California, especially those resulting from recent federal government cutbacks. Although we have increased our payout from 5 percent to 6 percent, we also want to boost our impact. Building resilience for the field requires intentional investment going beyond our traditional monetary support to help grantees become more flexible and develop a realistic but hopeful vision of the future. We want to provide the resources to adapt to changing policies and community needs and be creative in delivering services to meet today’s — and tomorrow’s — challenges. We are leaning in to community-driven action and supporting communities to improve access to care. For example, we’re partnering with many different organizations on advocacy and education projects such as the upcoming gubernatorial Health Matters Forum to shine a light on issues important to older adults, a webinar and learning session on how public charities can influence policy for the greater good, and webinars on the effects of H.R. 1 on older adults in California and how immigration raids and mass deportation are affecting the long-term care economy.
We need to build for the future, not only react to the chaos today. Resilience is less about holding fast to what was, and more about strategically building for what can be. The Foundation believes it is about meeting this unsettling time with innovation and determination — preparing for the future by harnessing community wisdom and enlarging organizational capacity as much as possible to shape better systems of care and support that are ever more just, equitable, and effective.
We recognize this work is not easy. There is no denying it is difficult to innovate under volatile conditions, yet this is precisely what the moment requires — and what Archstone Foundation remains committed to helping our partners achieve not just for today, but for a better future.
