Cavala: Latino Caucus Leader Achieves Milestone in Awareness of California Non-Profit Foundations

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

It was 38 years ago that I sat on the dais of a Legislative Committee for my first hearing as a staff person. Willie Brown came in late – as was his wont – and sat next to me. I went to hand him committee materials, but he waved them away. Instead, he interrupted the Reagan Administration official testifying at the time and began a litany of questions common for him during this period.

“How many Black people are on your senior staff”? How many Black people have you hired since assuming office?

The answer was always, “none” or “no one”, as Brown knew it would be. He asked the question to publicize that fact and to embarrass the official in particular and the Reagan Administration in general. It was a tactic designed to shame those with power into doing the right thing.

I was reminded of this vignette by the actions of Assemblyman Joe Coto, Chair of the Latino Caucus of the Legislature. As described by the media, “faced with legislation that would require them to disclose their ethnic composition and detail grants awarded to minority organizations, 10 of California’s foundations agreed Monday to a multi million dollar, multi year investment in minority communities”.

Having achieved his purpose of shaming these Foundations into a consciousness of the wrongful nature of their previous behavior, Coto dropped his bill. As one of the Foundation executives put it, the agreement “is a recognition by the foundation community that there’s a serious problem in terms of addressing the needs of low-income and underserved communities”.

A 2006 study had shown that less than 4% of grant dollars from the nation’s 24 largest foundations went to minority-led organizations.

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