By Lisa Cusack
Questions and outrage have swirled around what happened to the estimated $100 million FireAid raised, which was advertised as going to help victims of the Palisades and Altadena fires. A look into just a handful of organizations that received the money exposes a network of wealthy NGOs, all connected to Democrat politicians like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. It’s not just that the $100 million of FireAid money got sucked into nonprofits and never reached victims of the fires; it’s darker than that. The powerful elite, elected to serve the people of California, sat back and let entire neighborhoods burn to the ground. They then swooped in and took hundreds of thousands of dollars meant to help those victims and funneled it right back into their political organizing machinery. The web of government money, public-private relationships, and NGOs gives a window into how California Democrats use public money to maintain their control over the state.
One of the most influential and well-connected organizations to receive a FireAid grant is the Latino Community Foundation (LCF). LCF describes its mission as “supporting Latino-led organizations and mobilizing political participation of Latinos in the state.” They claim to have organized “the largest campaign to mobilize Latino voters in California” in 2020. By 2023, LCF had an annual grantmaking budget of $6 million and had invested over $29 million in grants to 375 nonprofits. In 2024, the LCF boasted that it invested $1.4 million into “grassroots nonprofits that are mobilizing voters” in California, as well as Arizona and Nevada. ProPublica lists LCF’s total assets at $54.6 million as of 2023. Newsom behested at least $50,000 directly to the Latino Community Foundation. LCF was also a major player in a public-private partnership with Gavin Newsom’s office, Activate Imperial, which characterizes its work as “putting boots on the ground,” as well as more fundraising for more nonprofits.
Latino Community Foundation was originally organized and supported, or incubated, by the multi-million-dollar San Francisco Foundation (SFF), as part of a “Latinx power-building and advocacy” project. SFF is heavily funded by corporate donors, including The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Meta, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and The California Endowment, which boasts of giving $300 million to “community organizers…to build a network of power.” SFF also provides services to set up charitable funds and gift-giving. A service that Gavin Newsom used to set up a “memory fund,” where donors could contribute in memory of his late father, Justice William Newsom. One of LCF’s startups, Prospera, has teamed up with Jennifer Siebel Newsom and her nonprofit, The California Partners Project, which has benefited from millions of dollars in behest from Gavin Newsom.
LCF isn’t the only organization that looks suspiciously like a Democrat grand game operation to receive money from FireAid. Alliance for a Better Community (ABC) and Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA) are both supported by LCF, and both received FireAid grants. IDEPSCA claims to be an organization that helps Hispanics, particularly day laborers. This year, they received the Monica Salinas Field Fellowship from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, where students are given a $6k stipend and placed with IDEPSCA to “build their skills in leadership, policy and advocacy.” In 2022, the Latino Policy & Politics Institute received $15 million in tax dollars from the California state budget for something called the “unseen Latinas initiative,” chaired by Los Angeles State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, and they have worked with Jennifer Newsom.
Alliance for a Better Community describes its mission as “advancing social, economic, racial equity and justice for the Latino/a community in the Los Angeles region through power building and policy advocacy.” ABC has another link to Gavin Newsom, as the governor has given multiple appointments to ABC’s Board Chair, Audrey Dow. In 2019, Dow was appointed by Gavin Newsom to the Health Professional Education Foundation Board of Directors. In 2021, Newsom appointed her to the Health Workforce Education and Training Council and to the California Student Aid Commission in 2022. Dow has a long history of working in California Democratic politics, including in HOPE’s (Hispanics Organized for Political Equity) Latina Appointments Collaborative, which works to place Hispanic women on government boards, commissions, and committees. State Senator Sasha Perez comes out of this Latina collective.
Just looking at the networks of a handful of these organizations begins to paint a clear picture of Gavin Newsom using his power and influence to redistribute money, which people believed was going to victims of the Palisades and Altadena fires, to the coffers of NGOs whose work is to bring out the vote for California Democrats. The emphasis on giving to Hispanic organizations is strange in and of itself, considering the majority of people who lost homes in the Palisades Fires were white, and in Altadena, black. One organization, the California Native Vote Project, whose stated mission is to help Native Americans Vote, was so obviously unconnected to either group of fire victims that they have reportedly returned their grant. While Native Americans Vote may not have any connection to Palisades or Altadena, it is connected to Karen Bass, as the executive director and co-founder of the GOTV organization, Chrissie Castro, also served on Mayor Bass’ Mayoral Transition Advisory Team.
The recipient of FireAid funds with the most direct ties to Gavin Newsom is the Beverly Hills-based non-profit, the Edward Charles Foundation, doing business as LA Rises. Governor Newsom personally behested $500,000 directly from FireAid to be given to LA Rises, which he himself helped launch, along with Casey Wasserman, who donated $100k to help Newsom fight the 2021 recall. The money for LA Rises was asked for as a donation, as opposed to a grant, and therefore is not publicly disclosed on FireAid’s website. The Edward Charles Foundation, like the San Francisco Foundation, is a deep pockets foundation that incubates other nonprofits, boasting of giving out grants to the tune of $2,000,000.00 per week. So the cycle continues as progressive billionaires, corporations, and politicians drop huge amounts of money into NGOs, which incubate and fund other Progressive NGOs for one purpose: perform year-round advocacy and community organizing work for Democrat causes and politicians.
This is Third World Corruption, to say the least, but there is a lesson in this for Republicans. A significant part of Democrats’ winning strategy is to invest eye-popping amounts of public money into ground game operations. Republicans need to start doing this, too, not in a corrupt, dishonest way, of course, but they need to get donors to see the importance of groups that work beyond campaign season to register voters, meet neighbors, and prepare to bring in ballots. Let’s hope that Democrats eventually pay a price for their corruption and that Republicans begin to learn a lesson.
Lisa Cusack is the Republican Chair of CA's 44th Assembly District, has written previously at RedState and The Federalist, and mom of three. Find her on X @Lisa_4_LA, or Instagram @Lisa_4_LosAngeles
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