FAC Joins Foundation’s Efforts to Sunset and Sunrise Efforts for California’s Central Valley Communities
Contact: fac@firstamendmentcoalition.org
The First Amendment Coalition has received a grant of $500,000 over three years from The James B. McClatchy Foundation (JBMF) as part of its first portfolio of “Sunrise Grants,” totaling over $10 Million in investment to grassroots-based organizations in California’s Central Valley. The individual investment will help support FAC’s mission of advancing government transparency and accountability and strengthening and protecting our First Amendment rights.
“We are so honored to receive this generous and extended support, which will do so much to advance FAC’s mission to defend and protect free speech, a free press, and the public’s right to know,” said FAC Executive Director David Snyder. “This grant and our partnership with JBMF will strengthen FAC’s work for years to come.”
In 2022, FAC trained hundreds of Californians on how to meaningfully engage with their government, advocated for and defended journalists whose free-press rights were threatened; and offered direct support for newsrooms and advocacy groups across California, and in particular the Central Valley. In addition, FAC’s strategic litigation program enforced the public’s right of access to government records across the state. FAC has also recently expanded its library of training and educational materials like the definitive Police Transparency Handbook and The Right to Know, the authoritative source in California for media law and open-government laws.
A sunsetting foundation, JBMF intends these grants to support a multicultural democracy centering multilingual learner students and families, build community-powered local journalism and advance the next generation of inclusive leaders.
“We know that decades-long structural inequities that have led to generational poverty and limited access to opportunity in the Central Valley cannot be fixed overnight,” said Priscilla Enriquez, Chief Executive Officer of the James B. McClatchy Foundation, “That is why the Foundation has decided in its sunset to elevate the Central Valley, invest all our resources in the people and places where change needs to be made, and leverage our sunset to ignite greater investments from philanthropy.”
Despite investing all our resources in the people and places where change needs to be made, Central Valley residents’ incredible resourcefulness and resilience, the lack of direct investment in nonprofits and their leaders has resulted in a fatigued and frustrated nonprofit ecosystem. JBMF’s support seeks to correct this underinvestment by dedicating its sunsetting funds towards cultivating a new generation of leaders. This first set of transformational Sunrise Grants reflects JBMF Foundation’s intentional direction in its sunset.
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About JBMF:
The James B. McClatchy Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit philanthropic organization founded in 1994 by Susan and the late James B. McClatchy. We stand with the people of the Central Valley by investing in education and active civic participation in our democracy.