Donor Engagement - Yolo Community Foundation

Yolo Community Foundation’s mission includes inspiring giving, thus increasing local donations, and supporting philanthropists, enabling them to achieve their social impact goals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked to help local donors to understand what our Yolo communities need, how our local nonprofits have been working to address those needs, and the critical role that donors play in supporting our nonprofits and, through them, our neighbors in need. We achieved that goal in several ways.

First, we gathered stories from local nonprofits about their pandemic-relief efforts and shared them via our website and social media (@YoloCommunityFoundation on Facebook). You can see the stories we collected here; that page will give you a good understanding of our local nonprofits’ initial response, but it is now out of date. You can get an updated understanding of Yolo nonprofits’ work here or by contacting us at .

Second, we sought to tell our local nonprofits’ stories via our local news media. You can see examples here, here, and here. We surveyed and interviewed nonprofits about their needs and created the State of Yolo Nonprofit Sector Update (covered here). We also created the Yolo County Nonprofit Directory, which went out to more than 15,000 homes via our Yolo County newspapers.

Finally, we have hosted a number of panels and convenings designed to explore community and nonprofit needs in greater depth. The Yolo COVID-19 Community Needs Series, which took place in February/March 2021 and was sponsored by Sutter Health, featured local leaders discussing the impact of the pandemic and its fall-out in Yolo County. View video recordings and written summaries below for each of the five topics: Children & Families, Food Insecurity, Mental Health, Housing Insecurity, and What’s Next: A look toward recovery. More recently, we co-hosted a workshop addressing the impact of the pandemic on the Yolo arts & culture sector, entitled “Mapping the Sector: Arts & Culture Post-Pandemic.” Our co-hosts were Arts Alliance Davis and YoloArts.

Feb. 25 Children & Families Panel