For the past year, Heron has been working to help people and communities help themselves out of poverty within the San Joaquin Valley. This work has been guided by a series of strategic questions, as well as ongoing relationships with partners on the ground in Fresno County. In this post, we discuss our efforts to better integrate data as we try to understand the opportunities and challenges facing the San Joaquin Valley.

General operating support can provide nonprofit organizations with the flexibility to plan, innovate, and pivot in their work. So, why don’t more foundations provide general operating support as part of their grantmaking strategies? In this post, we chat with Mary Jo Mullan, a former and longtime member of the Heron team, about the importance of general operating support. 

In 2018, Dana Bezerra became the new president of Heron. However, Dana has been at Heron for 13 years in total, starting as a program officer in 2006. She’s seen Heron grow and change and is now sharing her guidance, leadership, and lessons learned as we focus on the intersection of communities and capital markets. In this podcast episode, we ask Dana to reflect on her first year as president, and share what’s next for Heron.

Pension liabilities can be a detriment to community prosperity, while pension funds can be a source of power for workers. With those dynamics in mind, here are a few pension-related questions we’re asking this week.

To convey our mission to our preexisting and prospective managers, Heron has created a Letter of Intent for our fixed income portfolio. 

At Heron, our Portfolio of Work is guided by four strategic pillars: community systems, net contribution, properly capitalizing enterprises, and conscious portfolio construction. We like to say that our “sweet spot” is at the intersection of two or more pillars — ideally all four.