Khadiza is from a settlement in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where she lives with her husband and four children. At age […more…]

As 2022 drew to a close, Tim and Ginny Bliss issued a challenge to Mission Scholars and the Santa Barbara […more…]

The Santa Barbara Education Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of Nina Dunbar to serve as Donor Advisement Officer. […more…]

In honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which is celebrated annually on December 3rd, NatureTrack Film Festival’s award-winning […more…]

Cottage Health has appointed Dr. Miriam Parsa, a board-certified pediatrician and pediatric rheumatologist, to the role of Chief Pediatric Medical […more…]

The Hillside 6th Annual Shining Light on Abilities is open! All are welcome to visit and experience the festive display […more…]

The Fund for Santa Barbara is excited to announce that we are partnering with The County of Santa Barbara to […more…]

The Santa Barbara Education Foundation will award 71 grants to SB Unified teachers totaling $100,000 to help meet the needs […more…]

Santa Barbara came together to celebrate Unity in Our Community at the Annual Unity Telethon. This 36-year tradition entertains, warms […more…]

Just about everything Hillside does is for its residents, the 59 people who live at the facility that have developmental […more…]

Pollack has joined the Board of Directors of the national dream-granting organization  Landon Pollack (Managing Partner of Ignite Venture Partners) […more…]

Organic Soup Kitchen is hosting its first annual Holiday SouperMarket and Soup Tasting Party on December 10th. The event will […more…]

For a decade, the Organic Soup Kitchen (OSK) hosted community meals on Christmas Day at the Veterans Memorial Building on […more…]

We launched The Giving List to help the nonprofit organizations featured in this book spend less time fundraising and more […more…]

We are thrilled to present you with this year’s edition of The Giving List Santa Barbara. One of the things I love about Santa Barbara County is that it’s small enough to feel manageable, yet big enough to offer a robust and interesting tapestry of people, communities, and causes. In Santa Barbara you can make a difference in people’s lives through good work and innovative programs to tackle challenges that in larger regions seem too overwhelming; you can bring together groups to create invaluable partnerships to solve problems. Nowhere is this reflected more clearly than in Santa Barbara’s nonprofit and [...more...]

Unity Shoppe Executive Director and CEO Angela Miller-Bevan grew up in Santa Barbara and was raised by a single mother […more…]

Deb Langford:Head of Black Wealth Initiatives,J.P. Morgan Private Bank Deb Langford was mindful of the impact of giving long before taking up her role as Head of Black Wealth Initiatives at J.P. Morgan. In her current function, Langford guides affluent members of the Black community in the growth and preservation of their wealth, and in leaving generational legacies. Following a career of driving results, excellence, and inclusion in media and entertainment, Langford pivoted to deliver enterprise-level outcomes in diversity initiatives.  Most recently, Langford was named a 2022 NAACP Changemaker Award honoree. Now that she has made her foray into the [...more...]

George Leis has been a prominent business and civic leader in Santa Barbara for decades. But he readily admits he left at least a piece of his heart in San Fernando. The Valley, that is. “I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t gotten an amazing education at Northridge,” the president and chief operating officer of Montecito Bank & Trust says, referring to California State University, Northridge. It is called Matador pride, a passionate sense of gratitude for the educational grounding and life lessons that has made CSUN a defining experience, particularly for students who, like Leis, [...more...]

With nearly a century of experience serving the Central Coast, the Santa Barbara Foundation (SBF) has always been there when our community needed it most. From world wars, the Great Depression, droughts, fires, and through the pandemic, SBF has remained flexible and constant in its work to care for Santa Barbara County.  In the spring of 2020, when schools, businesses, governments, and nonprofits were struggling to respond to a new kind of virus, the Foundation moved quickly, in partnership with other funders, to offer emergency grants to local organizations whose income stream – perhaps even their existence – was on [...more...]

Michael Towbes, who founded Montecito Bank & Trust (MB&T) in 1975, struck a different tone than most bankers when he proclaimed that, “banking is not about the MONEY, it’s about the PEOPLE.” This sentiment is echoed in terms of the bank’s philanthropy, which amounted to $1.6 million donated to local nonprofits in 2021.  And that’s not a one-time event; MB&T has contributed at least $1 million to local nonprofits every year since 2003 through numerous programs including its Community Dividends Program, which donates funds based on four “pillars” of corporate giving: arts and culture, health and medical, social services, and [...more...]

Philanthropy, incorporated for the public good, can and should make all its investments accordingly. In 2021, Senators Angus King (I-Maine) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill to more tightly regulate donor-advised funds, commonly referred to as DAFs. While the Accelerating Charitable Giving (ACE) Act’s reforms were far from sweeping, the bill set off a bitter debate over who controls charitable funds: the donor or the public. The Act’s supporters plausibly argued that wealthy donors could use the increasingly popular philanthropic instruments for personal gain, and that DAFs allow them to hoard and perpetually control what becomes public money once [...more...]