ABOUT THIS EPISODE
What does it look like to build durable community power? SOMOS Mayfair, a grassroots organization in East San Jose founded by and for the historically excluded immigrant families of the Mayfair neighborhood, has received more than $20 million in support from Sobrato Philanthropies, the philanthropic arm of the Sobrato Organization. Phil talks with Camille Llanes-Fontanilla, Sobrato Philanthropies' senior vice president of community impact and systems change and SOMOS Mayfair's former longtime executive director, and Saúl Ramos, SOMOS Mayfair's current co-executive director, about what it takes to fund and lead an organization built around resident-led solutions rather than a single programmatic focus.
Llanes-Fontanilla and Ramos describe SOMOS Mayfair's evolution from an early-education program into a broader "power-building" infrastructure spanning leadership development, worker-owned cooperatives, and affordable housing organizing, and explain why the perception that the organization "lacked focus" actually reflected a deep commitment to following community need. The conversation also turns to the current climate of fear shaping daily life in immigrant communities amid stepped-up enforcement, the toll that sustained crisis response takes on nonprofit leaders and staff, and why funders should resist retreating into "strategic planning" pauses just when communities need consistency the most.
Resources:
The Giving Code: Silicon Valley Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Center for Effective Philanthropy State of Nonprofits 2026: What Donors Need to Know
