Welcome to the Giving Catalog 
Pitch in to support these important projects at local nonprofits by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, February 28! 
To give with credit card or through your bank account, click Donate in each opportunity; to give through your Donor Advised Fund, click Grant Request.  
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916 Ink

Funding Requests

With this grant, 916 Ink will re-establish our impactful writing workshops with the Mustard Seed School. After 15 hours of instruction to up to 40 students who are experiencing homelessness, we will publish an anthology of student poetry and prose.
With this grant, 916 Ink will re-establish our impactful writing workshops with the Mustard Seed School. After 15 hours of instruction for up to 40 students who are experiencing homelessness, we will publish an anthology of student poetry and prose. 916 Ink is Sacramento's arts-based literacy nonprofit that provides free creative writing workshops and literacy tutoring for youth, grades 3-12, to transform low-income and at-risk youth into confident writers and published authors. Our workshops increase literacy skills, improve vocabulary, teach empathy, positively impact social emotional learning, and expand communication skills. Through our established programs, we create lifelong readers and articulate communicators who know the power of their own story.

Mustard Seed School is a free school for children 3-15 years old that provides a safe, structured environment, a positive learning experience, survival resources, counseling for both children and parents, assistance for entering or reentering public schools, and other resources for Sacramento families experiencing homelessness.

Working together from 2014-2019, 916 Ink has published 5 books which highlight the exceptional experience, resilience, and creativity of more than 150 homeless students at Mustard Seed School. By prioritizing and celebrating these students and their families, we help to ensure that they feel supported and heard. By providing the funds to re-launch a 916 Ink program at Mustard Seed School, you can help us implement an unforgettable and empowering experience for the children who could benefit from our program the most. Both organizations are enthusiastic about the opportunity to re-engage in an ink-redibly meaningful way!

All About Equine Animal Rescue

Funding Requests

AAE is launching a small animal program to assist local animal services by fostering kittens/puppies and supporting high-risk dogs/cats at risk of euthanasia due to capacity or medical issues beyond the agencies' resources.
AAE has long been supporting local and nearby animal services agencies with intake of horses and other equine. AAE began assisting Sacramento County Animal Care Services in 2024 by fostering/caring for 26 orphan kittens until they were old enough to be adopted. Most of the kittens were adopted by AAE volunteers or other friends of AAE. Recently, we began helping with a litter of five Pit Bull-x puppies and their Pit Bull mother, who were surrendered to the shelter within a day or two of the puppies' birth. The family sat in the overcrowded shelter for their first couple of weeks awaiting adoption, rescue, or a foster. We also helped with a six month old pup with a fractured femur. Dakota sat in the shelter for almost 3 weeks waiting for someone to save him. He came to AAE while waiting for his surgery. After returning to the shelter for surgery, he came back to AAE as a foster failure. This sweet boy will be a light duty ranch dog greeting all of our volunteers and visitors. Please see the attached photos of some of the small animals we are helping.

We would like to expand this program as it provides a great service to our animal care agencies, especially when their capacity is stretched and animals face euthanasia. Also, it will help prevent euthanasia in those cases where the agency cannot manage veterinary needs. To expand these services, additional equipment and supplies are necessary, e.g. kennels, feed and water bowls, litter boxes, litter, puppy pads, feed, protective flooring for the kennels to ease cleaning, and other related items. Additionally, initial funding to assist with veterinary needs will increase AAE's capacity to intake dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens with veterinary needs.

Celebration Arts

Funding Requests

Celebration Arts seeks $5,000 to support our Kids' Time Program (Spring and Fall camps): $1,500 for scholarships ensuring access for 50 students and $3,500 for production costs, empowering youth through arts education and performance.
Celebration Arts (CA), founded in 1986 by award-winning actor-director James Wheatley, is Sacramento's premier Black theater company. CA is dedicated to providing education and performance opportunities for underserved communities, particularly African-American residents, making it a cornerstone of Sacramento's cultural landscape. The organization offers comprehensive training in acting, dance, and music while showcasing award-winning Black playwrights and celebrating the richness of Black culture through its annual theater season.

In the 1990s, CA expanded its programming to include multiple plays, concerts, and the Kids' Time program—an arts training initiative for children aged 6–12. This year, CA plans to host two Kids' Time sessions: eight-week performing arts programs serving up to 50 children. Participants immerse themselves in music, movement, and drama within a nurturing and inclusive environment, fostering confidence, discipline, and creativity. Each session culminates in a live performance where the young artists proudly showcase their talents and growth.

Kids' Time is a transformative program where BIPOC youth can develop their talents, celebrate cultural heritage, and gain essential skills for personal and professional success. The program's primary objectives include:

Expanding Arts Education Access
Kids' Time ensures equitable access to theater arts education for underserved and marginalized youth, providing quality experiences that might otherwise be inaccessible.

Fostering Creativity and Innovation
Through theater, music, and dance, participants explore new avenues of self-expression, igniting their imagination and encouraging innovative thinking.

Building Communication and Collaboration Skills
By working in teams with peers, instructors, and mentors, participants develop essential skills in teamwork, collaboration, and effective communication, contributing to their holistic personal growth.

CA employs the following methods to ensure participant success and progress toward program objectives:


Workshops & Classes: Led by experienced instructors, these sessions focus on skill development, creativity, and self-expression, providing a strong foundation in theater arts.

Productions & Performances: Youth gain hands-on experience in live productions, allowing them to apply their skills and shine in front of an audience.

Mentorship: Mentors offer personalized guidance, feedback, and support to help participants navigate challenges and grow artistically.

Scholarships & Financial Aid: These resources ensure that financial barriers do not prevent participation, fostering inclusivity.

Evaluation & Feedback: Regular feedback from participants, parents, and instructors drives continuous improvement and ensures program effectiveness.

Kids' Time serves as a gateway for aspiring performers to develop over multiple years.
Participants may remain in the program for up to six years and audition for age-appropriate roles in CA's six annual productions. These performances, which reach audiences of up to 1,400 per production, immerse youth in culturally relevant theater while offering real-world experience in the performing arts.

By blending artistic exploration with essential life skills, Kids' Time nurtures creativity, builds confidence, and provides a foundation for lifelong success. This program not only enriches participants' lives but also strengthens the cultural fabric of the Sacramento community.

Empower Yolo, Inc.

Funding Requests

Empower Yolo's Safe House Kids Camp offers an 8-week summer program with crafts, sports, and field trips, fostering fun and life skills. Supported by teen counselors, it provides a safe space for kids in need.
Empower Yolo's Safe House Kids Camp provides an enriching 8-week summer program for children residing at the safe house that serves victims of domestic violence. Packed with crafts, sports, outdoor activities, and field trips, the camp combines fun with essential life skills like leadership, teamwork, and communication.

Understanding the challenges parents face, the camp fills a gap for families with limited resources, offering children experiences they might otherwise miss, such as vacations, camps, or outings. This safe and supportive environment helps kids thrive and build lasting memories.

The camp is supported by Empower Youth, a local teen service group with chapters at Davis High School and Emerson Junior High School. These dedicated teen counselors assist camp staff, lead monthly community service projects, and provide year-round tutoring for children at the safe house.

Each summer, financial support is vital to sustain the camp. Contributions help provide snacks, water, outdoor toys, grocery gift cards for lunches, and fund "Fun Fridays," which include movies or pool outings. Your support ensures these children enjoy a meaningful summer filled with growth, joy, and discovery.

HomeAid Sacramento

Funding Requests

HomeAid Sacramento seeks $5K to build a laundry room at The Grove, a 50-sleeping cabin community providing emergency bridge housing for emancipated foster youth. The project will be completed by Q4 2025 with an estimated retail cost of $25K.
Established in 1996, HomeAid Sacramento (HAS) is the only non-profit developer of housing and programmatic facilities for non-profits in the Greater Sacramento area.

Thanks to our deep connections within the building community, HAS provides 50%-85% of the total cost of the construction project through in-kind donations of services and materials and grant funding.

HomeAid is partnering with The Grove to install a laundry room at its 50-sleeping cabin community that provides emergency bridge housing for emancipated foster youth ages 18-24.

The Grove's guests are limited to sending out a 5-lb bag of clothing each week for laundering. This is a significant expense to the nonprofit, and it prevents guests from developing the critical life skill of doing one's own laundry.

The laundry room project includes asbestos remediation, new drywall, paint, flooring, and plumbing for 3 washer-dryers. The washer-dryer equipment has already been donated!

The estimated retail cost of the project is $25K and all monies saved by The Grove on this project can be dedicated to providing services to the emancipated foster youth.

Juma Ventures

Funding Requests

Juma Ventures is a nonprofit social enterprise, employing low-income young adults with the mission to break the cycle of poverty by paving the way to work, education, and financial capability for youth. Help support our Education Reconnection Fund!
Juma serves low-income 18-24 year old young adults who are disconnected from both school and work for six months or more, have experienced homelessness, been involved in the foster care or justice system, and/or have faced mental health or trauma. We immediately employ these young adults in our social enterprises, working in guest and food concessions service at all Kings games, River Cats games, Sacramento Republic FC matches, and Toyota Amphitheatre summer concerts. These youth then immediately enter Juma's YouthConnect program, where they learn financial education, gain critical core competencies, and explore and prepare for viable career pathways, and receive Case Management services to remove barriers and connect to needed resources, all while earning learning stipends.

In order to launch youth from the Juma job to a thriving wage career, reconnecting to higher education is essential. Support for our Education Reconnection Fund will allow Juma's Education Coordinator to provide 10 youth with the highest barriers our full Education Reconnection program. This suite of supportive services includes back-to-school kits, laptops, tablets, internet, graphing calculator, transportation support, campus tours, school clothes, application fees and official transcript costs, and an in-depth series of 7 workshops so that young adults can feel confident and supported as they reenter higher education and gain the skills and credentials to enter their desired career pathway and break the cycle of poverty.

River City Food Bank

Funding Requests

This funding will help River City Food Bank upgrade essential technology, including new laptops for staff. These upgrades will improve efficiency, streamline operations, and support our mission to provide healthy food to 320,000 individuals annually.
River City Food Bank is dedicated to providing healthy, culturally meaningful food to more than 320,000 individuals in Sacramento each year. To further enhance our operations and better serve our community, we are seeking funding up to $5,000 to upgrade essential technology.

Specifically, these funds will allow us to purchase new laptops for our staff, improving workflow efficiency, communication, and data management.

Upgrading our technology will empower our team to work more effectively and continue delivering critical services to those facing food insecurity. With this support, we will enhance our capacity to meet the growing demand and maintain our role as a trusted safety net for families in need.

Sacramento Region Community Foundation

Funding Requests

Contributions to the Foundation's Impact Fund help direct resources where they're needed most — right in our community.
When you give to the Impact Fund, you invest where it matters most, now and in the future. Your gift makes it possible for the Foundation to lead with agility and respond to what our region needs most.

Gifts to the Impact Fund foster Cultivate, our local solution to nationwide fundraising disparities affecting nonprofit leaders of color. To date, Cultivate has offered no-cost training and support to more than 60 leaders of color at area nonprofits, the very people on the front-lines of addressing our region's most pressing challenges.

That's not all. Gifts to the Impact Fund make possible efforts like:

Big Day of Giving, which annually connects 30,000 local people to causes that matter.

Culture Is Mental Health Project, which strengthens mental health for area youth through by connecting them to their cultural backgrounds.

The Impact Fund is powered by people like you — those who believe in a vibrant, thriving community where everyone can succeed. Together, we can drive meaningful change and ensure a brighter future for generations to come.

Sierra Service Project

Funding Requests

Sierra Service Project seeks funding to grow the North Sacramento Free Tool Library program and inventory. This impactful resource empowers our neighbors to maintain and invest in their homes, hobbies, and community spaces.
Sierra Service Project (SSP) has spent 50 years building community connections. Most of our programs are volunteer-powered home repair or community projects in partnership with various organizations and municipalities throughout the western US. A central component of all programs is the involvement of youth and young adults (though we welcome volunteers of all ages).

While we host service-learning opportunities year-round, our summer program is our most robust volunteer offering. Throughout the year, we have a large inventory of tools and equipment available to our community. In 2022, SSP was looking for innovative ways to invest locally, and we found that folks were spending more time at home, with the ongoing impact of COVID. We launched the North Sacramento Free Tool Library, iterated as a part of SRCF's Lab Capacity Building Program.

The North Sacramento Free Tool Library is designed to help people who have the skills to repair their homes, but lack tools or the space to store them. In three years, the Tool Library has made an impact, loaning 1,240 items to 75 borrowers, and offers 169 items.

To increase our impact in the community, SSP seeks to increase the Tool Library's inventory, including purchasing the following most requested items: impact drivers, torque wrenches, and floor jacks. In addition, we do not currently have dedicated funding to staff the Tool Library, which is subsidized by SSP's general operational budget. To increase the hours open to the public, 20% of any grant funding will be dedicated to personnel costs.

Stonewall Foundation of Greater Sacramento

Funding Requests

We are requesting funding to support our partnership with the Sacramento City Unified School District's LGBTQ+ Support Services who have been our partners for 7 years.
The Stonewall Foundation of Greater Sacramento's mission is to foster leadership and support high school and college students in the Sacramento region who will be the next generation of leaders advancing equity and representation in the LGBTQ+ community. We provide grants and scholarships to high school and college students, build mental healthcare capacity through a partnership with Sunburst Projects, and partner with SCUSD's LGBTQ+ Support Services. They are a long-term partner of the Foundation in our work to support students in the Sacramento Region. The team is made up of dedicated professionals who serve a diverse community of students facing obstacles to their education and often their home lives.

The program hosts an annual queer and trans youth empowerment conference, Be Brave, Be You in collaboration with affirming organizations and community partners. This free event is for youth in middle and high school, whether or not they're enrolled with SCUSD. The day consists of facilitated workshops on topics like healthy relationships and zine-making. It also includes meals, entertainment from local artists, and a resource fair. Attendees are able to access affirming donations of clothing, community resources, cosmetics, books, and care items in addition to Pride gear.

This donation would allow us to offer the first SCUSD Lavender Graduation for attendees promoting from middle school and high school, increase event capacity, and support local businesses/performers through stipends for their work.

As Sacramento's LGBTQ+ students face increasing stress on their health and wellness it is crucial that they have moments to look forward to and celebrate, and we are committed to supporting that.

Thank you for your consideration.

TLCS, Inc.

Funding Requests

Hope Cooperative (aka TLCS) has been providing behavioral health and supportive housing services to people in Sacramento and Yolo County for over 40 years.
Hope Cooperative has been providing behavioral health and supportive housing services to people in Sacramento and Yolo County for over 40 years. As a person-centered organization, our services include homeless outreach, crisis intervention, intensive case management, supportive housing, life skills education, psychiatric services, therapy, co-occurring substance use treatment, residential support services, and opportunities for social connectedness and meaningful activities, which we provide to more than 10,000 people in our community each year.

The attached photo is of current dog kennels. We are asking for funding to build a roof over them for weather protection in the winter months, and shade during the summer months. This would also support putting in horse stall mats, which are much easier to clean, disinfect, and reduces the risk of infections to the animals. Food and water bowels, beds, food, waste pick up tools and a trash can will not only give the animals a more comfortable space but allow us to provide basic daily needs.