For The California Wellness Foundation, the theme this year has truly been capacity building. We've worked to enhance our strategic grantmaking Initiatives in response to community needs and to strengthen our internal capabilities to better serve our grantees in their crucial mission to improve the health of Californians. In fiscal year 1996-97, the Foundation awarded 283 grants totaling nearly $33 million, with 70 percent of those dollars going to direct-service projects. This funding affirmed our Foundation's commitment to the capacity-building needs of nonprofit organizations that provide preventive health services as they respond to the historic changes wrought by welfare reform legislation and other related policy changes, often referred to as devolution. We welcomed three new members to the Foundation Board of Directors: Stewart Kwoh and Douglas Patiņo from Southern California, and Peggy Saika from the San Francisco Bay Area. This brings the total number of Foundation directors to ten. And we mourned the loss of a board colleague, Ralph Santiago Abascal, who lost his battle with cancer in March. This past year, the Foundation continued its strategic plan to concentrate its grantmaking in five key areas over an extended period of time: Children and Youth Community Health, Health Improvement, Teenage Pregnancy Prevention, Violence Prevention, and Work and Health. The majority of the Foundation's funding is dedicated to strategic grantmaking Initiatives within each of these priority areas. The Initiatives represent coherent, integrated programs of grantmaking designed to focus Foundation resources intensively on an issue for a sufficient period of time to have measurable impact. At the same time, we recognize the value of remaining open to proposals from nonprofit organizations that are not part of the Initiatives and it is why we offer our general grants program within our priority areas. In addition, we have our special projects fund that allows us to respond to creative ideas and timely issues that affect the health of Californians. During the past year, we continued to mature as an organization and we have learned many lessons from our five strategic grantmaking Initiatives. Children and Youth Community Health Initiative Within the Children and Youth Community Health Initiative, the Foundation introduced the concept of "wellness villages" to engage young people directly in efforts to transform the environments in which they live in order to enhance community health. Planning grants of $125,000 each for 18 months were awarded to 16 ethnically and geographically diverse sites, ten of which will eventually be chosen as wellness villages. Technical support and evaluation grantees were also selected to work collaboratively with each group on community processes to help involve youth in planning and developing their programs. The initiative also recruited a national advisory committee with representatives from many areas, including youth, academia and community leadership. Health Improvement Initiative For the Health Improvement Initiative, planning was completed on the Health Partnership Program, with 13 communities selected to receive grants totaling $10 million over five years to create comprehensive, integrated systems of preventive services that address an expanded view of health. To help these communities reach their goals, the Foundation also funded five organizations to offer technical support, assistance and training over a broad area, which includes strategic planning, development of collaboratives, and systems change and evaluation. In addition, two major reports were produced by the Field Institute in collaboration with the California Center for Health Improvement: "Spending for Health" and "Welfare Reform: Redefining the Investment." Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Initiative The Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Initiative saw the launch of a public education campaign, the selection of seven Community Action Programs (CAPs) and the dissemination of the groundbreaking "Hot Spot" report that identified 82 areas with the highest rates of teen births across the state. In May, the campaign initiated a series of ads in national and local periodicals on the theme "Teen Pregnancy is an Adult Problem." The CAPs, backed with strong technical support programs, were launched at seven sites throughout the state, with $175,000 each to develop locally-based, long-range programs to foster healthy adolescent sexuality and decrease sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies. After an 18-month planning period, successful sites will be provided with longer-term funding. Violence Prevention Initiative The Violence Prevention Initiative's "Resources for Youth" public education campaign was launched to publicize effective community-based programs for young people and to encourage policymakers to invest more dollars in prevention and early intervention. The campaign included mailings, polling, television spots and a satellite video conference involving more than 1,600 community leaders at 31 sites across the state. The Initiative's CAPs came together to organize with other grantees to support the video conference and to collaborate on leadership and policy programs. The Initiative's leadership program funded 20 ethnically diverse Community Leader Fellows and ten Academic Fellows from across the state, and awarded California Peace Prizes of $25,000 each to three individuals in recognition of their violence prevention efforts. Work and Health Initiative Within the Work and Health Initiative, three sites were selected and funded $1 million each for four years under the Winning New Jobs program, based on the model developed by the Michigan Prevention Research Center. Re-employment training will be offered to 6,500 Californians over a four-year period. Also funded were 11 sites for four years to implement Computers in Our Future community computing centers for youth and young adults in disadvantaged communities to improve their employment prospects and health. The $6-million program has five major corporate sponsors and a technical support team. Finally, the Initiative's Health Insurance Policy Program released its first annual report titled "The State of Health Insurance in California." The insight we've gained from our Initiative work has given us a real appreciation for the value of general operating support and capacity-building grants. Through our Initiatives and General Grants programs, we are committed to funding nonprofits that are struggling with the challenges and opportunities created by shrinking government dollars. The stories presented in this annual report make a compelling case in support of capacity-building. We are fortunate to have talented, experienced board and staff. Together, we will continue to provide grants for underserved communities, particularly children, youth and families. We want them to benefit from strategic grantmaking that values the kind of leadership, creativity and collaboration demonstrated by the grantees profiled in this annual report. It is that kind of hard work and innovation the Foundation wants to nurture and support as it strives to improve the health of all Californians.