Tag archives: Giving List

‘Tis the season for our little slice of heaven to showcase its robust heart, with nonprofits across the South Coast hosting a plethora of events and fundraisers to aid those in need. Throughout the season, we’ll highlight companies that need help in order to hit their goals. This week, we take a look at the […]

Montecito Firefighter Lucas Grant is too young to have personal memories of what it was like when local firefighters were an integral part of a community beyond responding to emergencies, but that Norman Rockwell image of the local firehouse as a friendly and helpful gathering place still pulls on his heart. “I hear stories about […]

It’s purely coincidence that this week’s Montecito Journal hits newsstands the same day the Granada Theatre officially unveils Plaza Granada, a new pathway to the theater and the historic arts district in downtown Santa Barbara with a private ribbon-cutting ceremony. The Plaza transforms the formerly barren parking lot behind the theater and the previously dark […]

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, UCSB Arts & Lectures, like every establishment across the country, was forced to close and cancel all its programs. But the 62-year-old organization — still the largest and most influential arts and lectures presenter not only in the Santa Barbara region but in the several hundred- mile […]

Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation (TBCF) was founded by Nikki Katz back in 2002 after hearing of the financial and emotional challenges faced by the family of a three-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with bone cancer and a brain tumor and felt alone in dealing with both the diagnosis and the fallout. “I wanted to […]

Peruse the list of RAINN supporters online or in the 2020-21 inaugural The Giving List book and you’ll find a whole lot of famous names. There are singer-songwriters Tori Amos and Kesha, entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, and the actresses Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, among many others. That’s because, unlike virtually all […]

In its short 13-year history, Leading From Within — which was founded in 2008 as the Courage to Lead program that was created to offer renewal to experienced nonprofit executive leaders while also offering leadership development — has already had quite an impact in town. More than 60 executive directors have participated in the year-long […]

It’s just a coincidence that World Mental Health Day falls right in the middle of the circulation for this week’s edition of the Montecito Journal. The annual campaign was created by the World Health Organization with a stated objective of raising awareness of mental health issues and mobilizing efforts in support of mental health and […]

It was just about a month into the pandemic when the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara (UBGC) fully united, as the downtown club agreed to merge and fully centralize the 83-year-old organization. That might seem like a strange time to be making structural changes, as the merger was completed in April 2020, […]

Just Communities (JC), the nonprofit whose mission includes “dismantling all forms of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression,” works towards its vision of an equitable and inclusive Central Coast by offering cultural competency training to organizational leaders, education seminars for the general public, leadership training for students and teachers, and customized consultation to local agencies for diversity […]

It is said that Santa Barbara is home to more nonprofits per capita than any other county in the country. After writing about them for 30 years, I believe it. All the executive directors met at Chomp on the Rocks restaurant to celebrate the beginning of their fiscal year and chat about their business. Being […]

Montecito Union School’s Nature Lab, its interactive 2.5-acre space that’s beginning to take shape on the Upper Village campus, has been serving as a learning laboratory even before ground was broken on the project. The students at the enviable elementary school were a big part of the process about how to use the land adjacent […]

Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara has had plenty on its plate since the pandemic altered almost everything back in March 2020. Like everyone else, the nonprofit — whose mission is to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold with a vision serving empowered girls in an equitable society — had to make […]

Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Foundation’s 2020 Tiara Ball, one of the more popular annual black-tie galas in a town with no shortage of big bash benefits, was one of the last public events in the community before the COVID crisis closed everything down. The so-called “Party of the Year,” held on February 29, Leap Year […]

For a relatively large and well-established nonprofit organization in our community, United Way of Santa Barbara County over the last few years has demonstrated the ability to respond quickly to current circumstances — not so much as an about face or even a course correction, but more of an adapting to changing needs to meet […]

Santa Barbara has been all awash with talk about the reopening of public schools ever since the pandemic shut them down last spring. Parents of school-age children have had different desires and needs in this area as the situation and responses including various methods of remote learning shifted, with some schools reopening earlier than others, […]

It’s not too big of a stretch to suggest that a lot of people probably felt like they might never get out from under the “new reality,” what with several surges and multiple levels of lockdown over the past 15 months. But the folks over at the Santa Barbara Zoo are emerging from the COVID […]

The COVID pandemic was surely a challenge for just about everyone in Santa Barbara and all around the world, but some communities were harder hit than others. Not so much here in the city or Montecito but consider what it must have been like to go through the 15 months of lockdowns, surges and protocols […]

The Endowment for Youth Committee is one of the oldest nonprofits serving the needs of African American students and the greater Black community on the Central Coast, with a history that dates back 35 years. But before Guy R. Walker stepped in as executive director in 2015, the EYC had struggled to continue as a […]

For more than 40 years, Human Rights Watch has enjoyed an international reputation for taking on and often accomplishing its mission to scrupulously investigate abuses to widely expose the facts and then relentlessly press those in power, ranging from governments to armed groups to businesses — all in the name of change. Its ability to […]