The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. Headquartered in downtown Los Angeles, The Endowment has regional offices in Sacramento, Oakland, Fresno and San Diego, with program staff working throughout the state. The Endowment challenges the conventional wisdom that medical settings and individual choices are solely responsible for people's health. The Endowment believes that health happens in neighborhoods, schools, and with prevention.

The California Endowment's Health Happens with Prevention program is helping Californians to understand the Affordable Care Act, as well as providing resources to assist with its successful implementation. The Health Happens in Schools program is working to improve the nutrition and freshness of school meals, increasing opportunities for physical activity, and revamping zero tolerance discipline policies with common sense discipline reform that makes kids take responsibility for their actions but keeps them in school. The Health Happens in Neighborhoods program is working on land use policies that take health into consideration, improving neighborhood food environments to help address the obesity epidemic as well as promoting community safety so that families are free from community violence. The Endowment's 10-year Building Healthy Communities plan has 14 underserved California communities working to build community health through healthy youth development, advocacy, policy change and systems change.