SAN DIEGO — The St. Augustine Foundation is celebrating 10 years of grant-giving.
Augustinian Father Kevin Mullins, the foundation’s president, describes it as “the philanthropic arm” of the Province of St. Augustine in California.
By the end of 2024, the foundation had awarded 212 grants totaling more than $9 million. That includes 84 separate grants, representing more than $3.2 million, to entities located within the Diocese of San Diego. Grants have been awarded to projects in 26 countries.
Grant applications for 2025 will be accepted through June 30.
“The primary purpose (of the foundation) is to support Augustinian ministries around the world,” explained Executive Director David Canedo.
Not all of the projects are Augustinian-run, but one of the criteria is that all must be endorsed by an Augustinian friar of the province. (International projects require the endorsement of the Augustinian Prior General in Rome.)
The St. Augustine Foundation has four pillars of focus: Community Building and Pastoral Care, Care of Newcomers, Education, and Response to the Needy.
Canedo said that the sizes of the grants have ranged from about $5,000 to about $300,000.
Among the local organizations that have received grants are: Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego; Rise Up Industries; Casa Cornelia Law Center; Father Joe’s Villages; Nazareth House; Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center; and local Catholic schools, including Nativity Prep Academy, Our Lady’s School, St. Patrick School (North Park), St. Rita’s School, Cristo Rey San Diego High School, St. Augustine High School and John Paul the Great Catholic University.
Through 2024, the foundation has awarded $325,000 in grants to Catholic Charities and $306,000 to Rise Up Industries. The latter is a nonprofit that trains previously incarcerated individuals to become Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machine operators.
Casa Cornelia Law Center, which provides pro bono immigration legal services, has received $229,250 in grants from the foundation. Father Joe’s Villages, San Diego’s largest provider of homeless services, has received $314,315 over the years.
Examples of projects outside the United States that have received grants include the Province of St. Augustine in Nigeria, which received a $200,000 grant in 2021 to fund the relocation of its House of Theology after increasing security issues caused by Muslim extremists.
Hogar Infantil La Gloria, a Tijuana-based orphanage founded in 1975 in partnership with Augustinians from San Diego, has received multiple grants. For example, in 2022, it received a $100,000 grant for the construction of a perimeter security wall.
“I think it’s pretty gratifying just to see … the good that the Augustinians are doing throughout the world,” Canedo said.
Initial funding for the St. Augustine Foundation came from the California province’s sale of the Villa Nueva Apartments, an affordable housing community in San Ysidro, in 2007. Those funds were invested and are held in trust.
“We were able to build this foundation within a relatively short time to be in the position of granting money,” Father Mullins said, adding that subsequent years have seen an increase in the number of grant requests that the foundation has been able to handle.
“That’s a source of great pride for all of us,” he said.
Canedo said that “the big problem” facing the foundation is that it receives far more grant requests each year than it can approve. He said that, if all of the applications that met the foundation’s criteria last year were approved, it would have meant distributing about $2.6 million in grants.
“And our budget is only about $1.2 million on a yearly basis,” he said. “So, a lot of hard decisions have to be made.”
“The way we operate is that we’re not a foundation that tries to figure out a way not to give you money,” he said. “We’re a foundation that kind of bends over backwards trying to figure out … how we might be able to support you.”
For more information about the St. Augustine Foundation, visit thestaugustinefoundation.com.
