California’s demographics are changing fast, but rates of voting and civic participation haven’t kept up. In four rapidly growing counties across the state, a group of funders is working with local organizations to support diverse communities to lift up their voice and exercise their power on issues that affect their rights and their quality of life.

The work of the funders and their local partners is yielding important lessons as states and communities across the country begin to experience the dramatic demographic shifts that are transforming California. A new report, Bolder Together 2, documents key lessons for philanthropy from this work so far.

The report is a follow-up to a 2011 report that told the story of the funders’ early efforts. Now, after five years of grantmaking and intensive work in the four counties, California Civic Participation Funders tells a fuller story about how local organizations are coming together and working across issues to mobilize diverse communities to flex their democratic rights.

The funders also reflect further on how philanthropy can work with local communities to create a nation where government acts in the interests of all of the people.

Hundreds of students at U.C. Berkeley are undocumented Dreamers who came to the United States with their parents as young children. Meet a few of these students and hear their incredible stories, and learn firsthand how they are getting the services and the support they need to succeed at Cal and beyond with help from the Undocumented Students Program (USP).

USP is committed to supporting the advancement of undocumented students within higher education and promoting pathways for engaged scholarship. The program offers a network of support services to undocumented students, and is supported in part by the Haas, Jr. Fund.

Undocumented students face a host of challenges when it comes to attending college in the United States, from finding financial aid to navigating their way through an intimidating higher education system. In this video produced by U.C. Berkeley’s Undocumented Students program, meet the parents of three Dreamer students at the university, and find out how their children are getting the support they need to thrive at Cal and beyond.

In 1897, Levi Strauss, immigrant founder of the Levi’s clothing company, endowed twenty-eight scholarships at UC Berkeley—and launched a tradition of charitable work that his descendents would carry on for more than a century. This 2007 San Francisco Chronicle article profiles the Haas family’s several generations and traces the impact their philanthropy has had, from the transformation of San Francisco’s Crissy Field to creating equal rights and opportunities for families in the Bay Area and beyond.