Every year the James Irvine Foundation honors leaders for advancing solutions to critical challenges that affect millions of people in the state. The James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards recognize leaders whose innovative solutions to critical state challenges improve people’s lives, create opportunity, and contribute to a better California.
The Foundation spotlights these leaders, helps share their approaches with policymakers and peers, and provides each of their organizations with a grant of $350,000 and additional resources. EMS briefing on March 26 featured the award winners for the current year.
Manjusha Kulkarni, AAPI Equity Alliance led AAPI Equity Alliance (formerly A3PCON) from 2017. Kulkarni led the forty-year-old organization into a new era, growing it from a behind-the-scenes organization to one that leads groundbreaking work in health care access, interpersonal violence, and mental health.
AAPI Equity Alliance is now a coalition of over 40 organizations that serves the 1.6 million Asian American and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles and beyond, confronting discrimination, fighting mental health disparities, and pushing for legal and policy changes. Kulkarni is also a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition that collects data and fights racial injustice targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
