ACTION AREAS

CA FWD’s commitment to creating inclusive and sustainable growth is driven by supporting interrelated policy action areas that help all Californians prosper. From housing for all, to ecosystems and climate resiliency, these diverse areas are inextricably linked.

The policy priorities listed below are advanced in the coming year with the strength of our collaborative approach, including the California Stewardship Network, the California Economic Summit network and work groups, and our Young Leaders Advisory Council — and we measure our progress with the California Dream Index.

To stay up-to-date on the Action Areas below and receive our weekly CA FWD Newsletter, sign up today!

Priority Actions

For 2023, California Forward has identified the following priority actions.

    Housing for All

Housing has become the primary obstacle to livability in almost every region. High costs are pushing millions of people below the poverty line and many into homelessness. Compounding existing housing challenges, longer commutes negatively impact air quality and worker’s health, while more and more employers struggle to attract and retain skilled workers.

California Forward, together with partners, has risen to this challenge with ambitious policy initiatives and strategic alliances with triple-bottom-line economic development organizations.

“The triple bottom line for housing — equity, environment, economics — requires attainable homeownership for California’s working families.”
-Jennifer Hernandez, CA FWD Leadership Council

HOUSING AND HOMEOWNERSHIP WORK GROUP

Building wealth through housing entrepreneurship and supporting small BIPOC developers

2023 Priorities

Support and strengthen local capacity to maximize participation in middle density development

Advocate for state-level solutions and legislation that enables middle density development

Advance the creation of a BIPOC developer fund to add capacity and reduce barriers for small-scale developers of color

  NEWS & INSIGHTS

Aerial photo of Long Beach, CA
How California’s Tax System Puts Up Barriers to New Housing
1024 576 Nadine Ono

CA FWD report details the dilemma resulting in much less new housing in L.A. County’s Gateway Cities

Working to Build Affordable Housing for Farmworker Families and Beyond
1024 576 Nadine Ono

The Chavez Foundation includes a team leading efforts to build housing in four western states

Making the Space to Talk Solutions to Homelessness in Tuolumne County
1024 576 Nadine Ono

Dana Butow works to bring the public into conversations about solutions to homelessness in the rural county

State shells out seed money for an ambitious program for homebuyers
1024 576 Fiona Ma and Micah Weinberg

The California Dream for All program would allow the state to invest alongside first-time homebuyers so that they could afford to purchase a home in California

    Ecosystems & Climate Resiliency

mountains

Water and land are the most foundational and critical resources on the planet. Consecutive years of drought, flooding, and destructive wildfires demonstrate the varied impacts of climate change and the urgent need for deliberate, impactful action.

BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE WORK GROUP

Cultivating energy strategies that lead California towards an inclusive, net zero economy

2023 Priorities

CA FWD is committed to fostering and supporting regions-up collaboration and decision-making on energy transition policies focused on the following priorities that arose from our energy call to action and input from stakeholders who attended the 2022 California Economic Summit:

We Must Act Urgently & Carefully: California must more rapidly plan, permit and build new energy generation and transmission projects, while strategically calibrating its actions to ensure the energy system it creates is sustainable, reliable, affordable and equitable.

We Must Increase Renewable Energy Production & Be Technology Agnostic: California needs an energy approach that embraces the full range of carbon-free sources of energy and reinvests in our domestic manufacturing sector to support their deployment.

We Must Address Baseload Energy Today & For the Future: California needs a reliable grid, which will require a combination of dramatically increasing battery/long-duration energy storage systems, accelerating the deployment of geothermal power, reconsidering nuclear energy and/or a robust regional transmission grid.

We Must Invest in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) & Non-Carbon Energies: An array of carbon capture technologies will help us mitigate emissions from the imperfect-but-necessary energies/industries we still need today as we work to develop a diverse portfolio of zero-carbon energy sources for the future.

We Must Show Leadership & Share the Decision-Making: State policymakers and regulators have to make some hard choices and trade-offs and must engage regional collaboratives and community-driven planning to equitably drive this change.

ECONOMIC PROSPERITY IN A CHANGING CLIMATE WORK GROUP

Fostering a more equitable, prosperous and climate-resilient future

2023 Priorities

Collaborate across action areas to embed climate and equity as fundamental elements of each decision we make about economic systems like land use, housing, transportation, career pathways, natural resource management and community investment

Promote and raise awareness of collaboration across climate and economic development stakeholders and across state and federal economic and climate programs

RESILIENT AND PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES WORK GROUP

Meeting climate goals by reducing wildfire risk and supporting rural communities

2023 Priorities

Establish an evidence-driven basis for ensuring California invests in wildfire and forest resilience solutions that match the size and scale of the crisis

Support the establishment and implementation of a statewide biomass utilization strategy to advance forest health and scale up a bio-economy

Broaden outreach and coalition building across diverse communities, sectors and lands to advance solutions, including viable bio-based and wood products industries

  NEWS & INSIGHTS

Rescuing Left-behind Produce for Food-insecure Families in the Coachella Valley
1024 576 Nadine Ono

Hidden Harvest creates a win-win for low-income communities and farmworkers paid to harvest unwanted crops

Embedding Climate Across Summit Priorities and Actions
1024 576 Deb Kollars

New California Economic Summit work group aims to build regional resilience to climate impacts

Ffirefighters from Stockton, Calif., put out flames off of Hidden Valley Rd.
Mobilizing to Address California’s Wildfire Crisis
1024 576 Deb Kollars

With an estimated 4.5 million homes near wildfire danger zones, solutions that take on the crisis are growing more critical

Reflecting on Farmworkers’ Journey From Delano to Legislation Signing
1024 576 Ish Herrera

Walking alongside farmworkers reminded of their shared dreams and hope for a better future

    Thriving Economies

welder working

By bringing government, business, and civic leaders together to identify regional priorities, share innovations and align with state investments and other policies we can target the root causes of economic insecurity and unsustainable resource management. The result of this unified effort will be the establishment of a functioning system of “California Capitalism” that will be a model for the rest of the nation and the world.

ADVANCING INCLUSIVE REGIONAL ECONOMIES (GOING BEYOND CERF) WORK GROUP

Supporting California’s unique demographics through inter-regional information sharing and advocacy

2023 Priorities

Strengthen and support a regions-based Community of Practice to share learnings and generate promising practices

Encourage state alignment of other resources and programs towards CERF regions to support regional inclusive economic strategy implementation

Create opportunities and support for learning and alignment within regions

Create spaces for philanthropic engagement and support

CREATIVE ECONOMY WORK GROUP

Ensuring California’s creative communities and cultural heritage thrive

2023 Priorities

Strengthen a creative workforce and industry grounded in equity

  • Build out a model for a statewide pilot program to support creative workforce development and pathways into high paying jobs and high road training partnerships
  • Scale regional creative workforce development initiatives to increase racial diversity representation while setting an entry-level living wage
  • Develop partnerships with local workforce boards

Prioritize the creative economy as a leading industry in California

  • Build out a model for a statewide pilot program to support a Creative Economy planning group and a multi-agency strategic plan to envision the future of the creative economy for California
  • Increase public investment in arts and culture

Integrate arts and culture into local community and economic development strategies

  • Promote arts and culture as partners to community and economic development organizations
  • Collaborate across sectors to support arts and culture in regional economic development and infrastructure projects

Develop policies to support creative small businesses and self-employed arts workers

  • Build out a model for a statewide creative entrepreneurship academy and cross-sector collaboration on unemployment and safety net solutions to support independent arts workers

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL BUSINESS OWNERSHIP BY WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR WORK GROUP

Building a supportive ecosystem for the state’s entrepreneurs and small business owners

2023 Priorities

Support a small business ecosystem grounded in equity by:

  • Advancing solutions to capital access barriers and other persistent systemic inequities faced by women and POC owned small businesses, as outlined in the group’s 2021 framework document
  • Integrating small business voices into regional economic development and planning processes

Identify barriers to equitable small business participation in the state’s economy and leverage state policy and regional practice to foster greater inclusion

2023 ADVANCING MANUFACTURING WORK GROUP

Strengthening California’s manufacturing ecosystem and regional economies through a unified, strategic approach

Following a highly productive associated event at the 2022 California Economic Summit, the Advancing Manufacturing work group has been newly relaunched to actively promote the policy priorities below in the year ahead.

2023 Priorities

Form a statewide Manufacturing Council to advise state leaders and coordinate manufacturing-related activities to maximize state and federal funding opportunities

Elevate the role of manufacturing in meeting the state’s decarbonization and economic development goals

Identify specific needs to best position the state’s manufacturing sector for growth (e.g., regulatory reform, funding, education and public awareness, workforce development and DEI goals, data/research)

  NEWS & INSIGHTS

How to Elevate Manufacturing in California’s Decarbonization and Economic Goals
1024 576 Nadine Ono

This year’s California Economic Summit marks the return of the Advancing Manufacturing work group and its priorities

The Effort to Strengthen California’s Manufacturing Ecosystem Goes on the Road
1024 576 Nadine Ono

A critical conversation about the six key elements to maintaining a manufacturing economy is taking place around the state

Why the Data Gap on Small Businesses Owned by People of Color Matters
1024 585 Jennifer Lovett

Addressing the barriers for BIPOC entrepreneurs made more challenging by lack of local data

    Education Cradle to Career

Graduation hats in the air

California’s learning ecosystem must prepare workers to earn a livable wage.

While educational institutions have the largest role to play, an effective lifelong learning ecosystem requires alignment of strategies and tactics among multiple institutions – from early childhood development and preschool until retirement. To be successful, this approach requires the involvement of stakeholders, political leaders, faith leaders, civic leaders and others. An explicit focus on equity requires identification and dismantling of all obstacles to opportunity.

EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE WORK GROUP

Supporting equitable economic mobility through a more cohesive education and workforce system

2023 Priorities

Advocate for a systems approach to education and workforce development that emphasizes collaboration over competition

  • Further develop, advocate for and implement state policies and regional practices to support seamless transitions between education and workforce segments (early childhood, K-12, post-secondary, workforce)

Raise awareness of affordable, quality early childhood care and education as an equity and workforce issue and support efforts to reduce barriers to access

  NEWS & INSIGHTS

How the Number of Higher Wage Jobs Varies Across California’s Regions
1024 576 Patrick Atwater

New measurement shows significant differences in who holds higher wage jobs across demographics and regions

Building a Path from Early Childhood Education to Good Paying Jobs for Californians
1024 576 Jennifer Lovett

A look at new efforts to better align the state’s lifelong learning system

Scholarship Powers Creation of Diverse Pipeline of Electrical Lineworkers in California
1024 576 Nadine Ono

Community engagement leader at Southern California Edison shares how her background helped her build the program

    Connecting California

California Highway

1 in 8 homes in California still lacks access to high-speed broadband through a computing device or smartphone. The public health pandemic has displayed and even added to the current digital divide, disproportionately affecting our most vulnerable communities.

CA FWD believes that investments in infrastructure are vital to providing the access our communities need to stay connected and to thrive.

BROADBAND FOR ALL WORK GROUP

Bridging the Digital Divide

2023 Priorities

Advocate for the state and federal governments’ historic broadband investments, including SB 156, to be implemented swiftly, efficiently and equitably across California

Ensure that the needs and priorities of the regions, as advanced by the Regional Broadband Consortia and other partners, are fully reflected in state digital equity planning processes

“To help close the digital divide that exists in communities across California, the Governor announced at the 2019 California Economic Summit in Fresno that he will convene stakeholders, the private sector, education institutions, and government agencies with a goal of developing an inclusive “Broadband for All” plan for the state.”

  NEWS & INSIGHTS

Closing California’s Digital Divide through Collective Action
1024 576 Deb Kollars

Although broadband access has expanded significant gaps persist across all regions

State Launches Broadband Portal and Roundtable Gatherings
1024 576 Deb Kollars

California created an online portal and series of virtual roundtables to provide information on efforts to expand broadband access

Want to get more involved lending your time and talent to creating solutions and policies that move the state forward? Let us know by emailing info@cafwd.org or via our contact form.