The California Endowment: The Political Power of Giving

Bob Ross has been in charge of The California Endowment for 24 years.

He is about to retire and the Los Angeles Times is sad.

Dr. Ross – a real doctor, by the way, is in fact a former public health official (‘nuff said) – was given the classic “you are part of the power structure we support and we will miss you” hagiographic treatment in today’s Times.

The piece references the dozens of awards – largely from government agencies, it seems – that Ross has won. He is called “revolutionary,” who headed “one of the most important philanthropic forces in California” that helped create a “new generation of elected officials.”

He is a passionate man who cuts an imposing figure but “underneath is a gentle man with a soft voice…”

It is true that Ross has played a significant role in California over the past two decades or so, though to imply it was a positive role is rather misguided. The Endowment has about $4.3 billion in the bank and each year hands out hundreds of millions to “community” and “advocacy” and “social justice” groups across the state.  

Of course, that’s not what the Endowment was created for. It was specifically blurched into being by the state, which demanded that, in 1996 when the then-non-profit Blue Cross health insurer bought Wellpoint and became the for-profit Anthem, it set aside $3 billion to create two foundations specifically to “serve the health care needs of the State of California.”

Ross – over the past decade – had made sure the Endowment doesn’t really do that anymore. Instead it has focused on “place-based” giving to community groups and letting them decide what to do with the funds because giving money to specific projects was too top down, too “Quite frankly, less colonial and white supremacist,” as Ross – who made close to a million dollars a year – said.

Oh – and not just anyone could apply: you had to be invited.

And what has this approach meant? That almost none of the funds actually go directly to what any normal person would call health care initiatives.  According to their 2022 IRS filing, the Endowment dropped about $50,000 on one group that was dedicated to improving health care access to the uninsured.  

And at least another $70,000,000 on media and advocacy and empowering and organizing groups.

But that’s okay, that’s part of supporting health care by supporting the community in general. In fact, the Endowment has practically codified that concept in its own definition of health care, a definition so broad that it literally includes everything a person does every day.

That way, they can’t get in trouble for violating their articles of incorporation – they just changed what health care means.

This largesse has helped the Endowment extend its tentacles into hundreds of communities and groups, creating dependence-based relationships with the very people it says they are trying to free from, well, colonialism. Hmm.

It has also allowed the Endowment to become a major political player in the state, with tens of millions going to such non-political (they not allowed to play politics directly by giving candidates money) as “get out the vote” and “voter education” efforts in “challenged” communities.

Creating a local power base, the Endowment claims, is in fact improving health care.

Ross said he had an epiphany early on in his tenure when a formerly incarcerated teen opened his eyes:

Early on, though, Ross admits he was sometimes “well intended but arrogant.” He and his staff visited the Youth Justice Coalition, a South L.A. nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people. “This place was grassroots — like, old-ass building, frayed carpet, paint’s chipping away, but great energy.”

Ross told the group about the endowment’s programs to help juvenile parolees. “And this kid says to me, ‘Yo, doctor, that’s kind of nice, but, you know, really, man, we don’t think these kids need to be in lockup in the first place.’”

“I am a board-certified pediatrician, master’s in public health,” he continued, now flashing a grin. “Former head of a health department, running California Endowment. And I had to be subjected to a lecture by a 19-year-old who was formerly incarcerated who basically says, ‘We don’t need to fix youth prisons. We need to close them’? And I remember leaving that day feeling kind of humbled — but enlightened.”

The impact of this kind of massive giving from the Endowment and other so-woke their eyes are pinned open like in “A Clockwork Orange” foundations has been subtle yet enormous. What the Endowment and groups like the Tides Foundation are doing is creating political foot soldiers to do their bidding as they strive for equity and wonderfulness and happiness and the creation of a crushing over-arching state power structure.

Take, for example, the Los Angeles City Council.  Mayor Karen Bass got her start in politics as a community organizer in the non-profit world, as did one-third of the city council. The council also has three former elected official staffers, three union organizers, and a trio of long-time public employees (to be fair, one was a firefighter.)

That’s essentially the entire council and so many others around the state – they come entirely out of the kind of world that Ross and the Endowment are creating, a world in which the board rooms and offices cloaked in opacity – all stringently gatekept to stop badthink – are where the decisions are made, all in the name of serving the public.

It is hard to see how the Endowment is serving public health care needs by fighting the proposed gondola from downtown the Dodger Stadium, but it appears they are.

Actually, a clue to that position is in Gustavo Arellano’s column:  

The fourth-floor office of California Endowment CEO Robert K. Ross offers an Instagram-worthy view of Union Station, Olvera Street, City Hall and Chinatown.

Not that Ross and the Endowment could ever be accused of being self-serving, but that’s the view the gondola system may mar.  

With his retirement, will Ross go quietly into that good night? Doubtful.  He’s keeping his seat on the Weingart Foundation board  (the Foundation spun off the Weingart Center, is infamous for its new $600,000-per-unit homeless housing tower) and he’s moving to Huntington Beach.

Why does that matter? Because he told the Times that his being in town will mean “One less Trump flag there.”

A big mistake to insult your new neighbors, or a hint at a future run for city council, like so many of his beneficiaries, to try to flip the rational majority now running the city? Maybe.

But what is not a hint at all is what “one less Trump flag” tells the world about how Ross ran the Endowment.

Where do you think all that money went?