$2.5M in Funding Brings Together 3 Solano Nonprofits to Build Capacity

Three Solano County nonprofit organizations have been selected to receive a total of $2.5 million in capacity-building funding from philanthropic foundation, Magic Cabinet, that will help them to grow and strengthen their organizations to better support their community-driven work for the next five years.
Leaders of the three organizations — Mile High Residential Treatment & Behavioral Health, North Bay Housing Coalition, and Sustainable Solano — say that this funding will help them to achieve new goals, while also bringing them together as a cohort to share strategies and support.
“This long-term financial support will elevate NBHC to the next level,” said Mary Eble, executive director of North Bay Housing Coalition. “We are excited for what we can accomplish and learn from this experience.”
Magic Cabinet centers and amplifies the work of community-driven organizations by offering collaborative multi-year capacity-building funding that drives better decisions and cross-sector collaboration. This in turn creates a network effect of funders and nonprofit leaders, supporting one another as peers, amplifying their missions together. The Solano cohort will determine together how to allocate and spend approximately $500,000 per year to meet the unique challenges and opportunities of each organization.
“This funding will allow Sustainable Solano to fortify our organizational capacity to work on the ground, to build a democratically managed, non-hierarchical organization and to ultimately increase our impact in the community,” said Elena Karoulina, executive director of Sustainable Solano.
Magic Cabinet provides funding and access to a peer network to small- and medium-sized nonprofits in the Greater Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay areas. The foundation’s unique participatory approach invests in nonprofit cohorts that share a common geography and mutually supporting missions. Magic Cabinet’s approach brings together four elements of community-centered philanthropy: trust-based philanthropy, participatory decisions, capacity building, and long-term investment. Since 2019, Magic Cabinet has awarded over $45 million to nonprofits in Washington and California.
“Our grantmaking process is designed to support the whole nonprofit, not just the programs. We encourage our nonprofit partners to build capacity and infrastructure that will support their missions for the long-term,” said Christina Engel, executive director of Magic Cabinet. “We are changing how philanthropy works with the nonprofit community it supports. To put it simply, it’s all about relationships and shifting power to our nonprofit partners.”
This is the second cohort based in Solano County. In 2022, Magic Cabinet awarded funding to A Place-2-Live, Rio Vista Care, and Solano Advocates for Victims of Violence.
Throughout the five-year partnership, both the grantees and Magic Cabinet can discover operational strengths and pinpoint areas for improvement. The collaborative cohort creates a space for the three nonprofit partners to support and advise each other. Within the cohort model, uncovering an area of improvement is not a negative but an opportunity to build a stronger nonprofit — and a potential capacity-building project.

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About Mile High
Mile High Residential Treatment & Behavioral Health impacts the lives of foster youth one day at a time by creating an environment that allows for a new beginning, positive growth, and independence. The organization’s primary mission is to help our youth heal the wounds of various unfortunate traumatic experiences. This is accomplished through evidence-based and trauma-informed methods that lay the foundation for youth to ascend to new heights of personal excellence.
For more information, visit https://www.milehighbh.org/

About North Bay Housing Coalition
North Bay Housing Coalition’s mission is to increase affordable housing for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, based on the belief that people living with intellectual/developmental disabilities can and should have equal access to affordable housing, independence, and the opportunity to live a vital life in their community.
For more information, visit https://www.northbayhousingcoalition.org/

About Sustainable Solano
Sustainable Solano is a countywide nonprofit organization that brings together programs that support and sustain one another and the Solano County community to promote ecologically regenerative, economically and socially just communities in a world that works for everyone. Initiatives include sustainable landscaping, local food, resilient neighborhoods, youth leadership, sustaining conversations and community gardens.
For more information, visit sustainablesolano.org

About Magic Cabinet
Magic Cabinet is a philanthropic foundation that centers and amplifies the work of community-driven organizations by offering collaborative multi-year capacity-building funding that results in more equitable and well-resourced nonprofits. Magic Cabinet’s approach to philanthropy is highly collaborative. We pair with high-impact leaders, partners of all sizes, as well as social and community leaders to experiment transparently and bring a flexible and participatory approach to philanthropy. Within any partnership, Magic Cabinet can provide nonprofit discovery, education support, and collaborative granting.
For more information, visit https://magiccabinet.org/