The Granada Theatre has towered over the Santa Barbara area for 100 years, not just as the tallest physical symbol […more…]

Originally conceived in the late 1930s as a model residential facility for children with cerebral palsy, Hillside has evolved over […more…]

On a recent morning at Holocaust Museum LA (HMLA), Betsy, a docent, was leading a tour group of 20 LA […more…]

One of the most iconic public gardens in the world, Lotusland is a 37-acre wonderland of more than 20 distinct […more…]

On a cool September Sunday, a group of Marine Watchdog kayakers paddled into a sea cave on the rocky coastline […more…]

When a calamity befalls us, we are reassured that our First Responder protectors are on the job and doing their […more…]

Imagine a kid. He’s your son, and he has big plans. He wants to attend college and launch a startup. […more…]

In the wake of Maui’s tragic 2023 wildfires, relief organizations and the goodwill of the world at large poured into […more…]

In 2011, Sue Eisaguirre initiated a mission to bridge the gap between students and nature, ultimately founding NatureTrack, a thriving […more…]

New Beginnings has an ambitious and lofty goal for 2025: ending veteran homelessness in Santa Barbara County. It’s not a […more…]

In 2015, Casa Esperanza joined forces with PATH, a statewide nonprofit that for 40 years has provided services to more […more…]

Despite living with RUNX1 familial platelet disorder (RUNX1-FPD), Tim Babich lived a happy life with his wife, Monica. After the […more…]

Sansum Clinic is the largest independent nonprofit outpatient provider of healthcare between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. […more…]

The Community Farm is surely the jewel in the crown of communal self-reliance. Here we have a plot of food-producing […more…]

Santa Barbara Humane, founded in 1887, was one of the first animal welfare agencies in the country, opening nearly seven […more…]

Even as a student at UC Santa Barbara, Geoff Green – CEO of the Santa Barbara City College Foundation – […more…]

Throughout its history, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has been bringing people of all ages through a broad array […more…]

More than one billion people worldwide live with treatable vision loss due to a lack of quality eye care. While […more…]

Jackie Carrera, President and CEO, Santa Barbara Foundation. (photo by Dean Zatkowsky) Santa Barbara Foundation’s latest report on the State of Nonprofits in Santa Barbara County, published in autumn of 2023, indicates that the total of such organizations has now soared past 2,000 – a significant number considering that the county’s total population is just a tad over 455,000. It might seem both difficult and daunting to navigate among nonprofits, given that there are multiple, often single-issue organizations, serving nearly every imaginable sector, all of which do important, impactful work.  That’s where the Santa Barbara Foundation (SBF) comes in, and [...more...]

For Yvette Birch Giller, president and COO of Santa Barbara’s Mosher Foundation, philanthropy is a family affair. Working alongside both her father, Ed Birch, the Foundation’s chair and CEO, and her mother, Suzanne Birch, a trustee and education program specialist, Giller, after 13 years at Mosher, is preparing to take the reins from the man she calls her mentor, her role model, and her biggest cheerleader. Today, Giller finds herself at the nexus of the gradual sunsetting of Santa Barbara’s legendary philanthropic foundation trailblazers, and the dawn of a new generation of foundation leaders. And Giller has the benefit of [...more...]

Tammy Johnson, Santa Barbara Foundation’s Vice President of Philanthropic Services since April of 2022, didn’t set out to work in philanthropy. The daughter of a 35-year Southern California Gas Company employee, Johnson grew up in La Puente in the San Gabriel Valley, attending the public school system through high school. It was there that a guidance counselor pointed her toward what she thought might be her career. “He encouraged me to think about journalism because I was a school leader always doing the announcements over the PA, and I was a pretty strong writer,” Johnson recalls. “But I was still [...more...]