Our partnership with Lumina Alliance stems from "trust philanthropy." We believe philanthropy is more strategic, rewarding, and impactful when funders approach their relationships with their nonprofit partners from a place of trust and collaboration rather than compliance and control.

We began our relationship with Lumina through open, honest, and transparent conversations about the organization's needs in Northern SLO County. The original pitch from Lumina was focused on their emergency shelters, which Lumina Alliance operates in Atascadero and Paso Robles. We listened, remained curious, and quickly learned that the real need in our region was transitional housing. In fact, none existed, and in the first quarter of 2024, 17 families consisting of 18 adults and 27 children were turned away because of this lack of affordable transitional housing.

Transitional housing programs have proven more effective than emergency shelters, helping sexual assault and intimate partner violence survivors establish long-term goals, safe, stable housing, and the ability to heal. Transforming one of the emergency shelters into long-term affordable housing is a game changer for individuals and families who are healing and building a new life on their own. We are proud to partner with Lumina Alliance to help them further their mission and meet the needs of families in the North County. CLICK HERE to learn more about this project!

To all our donors, Thank you for allowing us to do this work of Trust Philanthropy.

Randy Gray ~ Community Projects Manager

WE GET ASKED THIS QUESTION A LOT

Question: How do I keep in touch and get more involved?

Answer: Attend a Donor Gathering!

As a donor, the easiest way to engage and learn all the ins and outs of our projects is to attend a donor gathering. Our next donor gathering event will be on Tuesday, September 17th at 5:00 PM! Get together with the Must! Team and fellow donors to get an inside look at recently launched projects and what the rest of 2024 has in store for us!

See other upcoming Donor Gathering Event dates HERE, or reach out to erika@mustcharities.org to get involved!

PURPOSE EVENT GENERATES $2.3M FOR OUR COMMUNITY

You might have seen some press coverage of our PURPOSE event recently. Each year, we partner up with some of our winery friends and throw a little party... It's not just a party; it's called PURPOSE. And indeed, it has just 1 simple purpose - to raise as much money as possible in one single night for the people in our community. We do not sell tickets to this event. Instead, we leverage our partnerships with wineries that graciously host guests, mostly from out of the area with shared philanthropic minds, to come and experience an intimate side of Paso that other visitors don't have the opportunity to experience. For years, we watched other wine regions raise money for their community that far surpassed what we were able to do here. So we got curious and began strategizing and figuring out how to bring this fund-generating concept to our region. Through those years of observing, learning, and strategizing - a small group of vintners took the leap with us and made it happen. This event is still in its infancy, as 2024 marked just the 4th year of PURPOSE. We keep the event quite small; this year, there were just 120 attendees, allowing us to offer experiences surpassing our guests' expectations. Each year, we learn, we grow, and we get excited at the opportunity and creative ways we can challenge ourselves so that we outdo the party the next year. It took more than our guest count to make this event a success - to all those who spent countless hours volunteering, working, donating your local fares, and showing up to help us make the magic happen - Thank YOU! We couldn't pull it off without the support of this community!