Be Well, Lead Well*: How California Philanthropic Organizations Are Funding Rest and Rejuvenation as Mental Health

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. One of the ways we can honor Mental Health Awareness Month by making space for rest, rejuvenation and sometimes retooling our skillsets. When we asked members how BFN could best support their goals for 2026, a key message that we heard was “help me stay in and thrive in the sector.” Rest, rejuvenation and retooling our skills is tied to career longevity, excellence and strategic impact.

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) recently published an article making the case for integrating worker well-being into the center of every philanthropic strategy. Broader efforts like Fund the People, ReWork the Bay, and others are building a movement that treats worker wellness as power-building and mission-critical. Intentional rest can be a career excellence and longevity strategy that allows leaders to refresh and return with renewed clarity and vision.

To inform and support the integration of rest and wellness practices, we’ve compiled resources for both foundation staff and grantee partners. For foundation staff, we are sharing opportunities that are specifically relevant to foundation staff and internal foundation policy development. We have also included opportunities for nonprofit executive directors and leaders that you can share with your grantee partners.

For Foundation Staff

Four Ways to Integrate Rest and Rejuvenation Into Your Philanthropic Practice

1. Encourage rest as a strategy - frame sabbatical time as an essential tool for maintaining high performance and operational standards

2. Fund the individual - consider awards that specifically cover a leader’s salary and personal expenses during a period of rest

3. Invest in interim succession - allocate a portion of sabbatical grants toward professional development for the interim staff who step up during the leader’s absence, positioning the transition as a strategic leadership development opportunity

4. Launch a sabbatical program - use this Funders’ Guide to Creating a Sabbatical Program to meet the need by developing a sabbatical program that is framed around your foundation’s grantmaking priorities and goal

For Grantee Partners

• California Wellness Foundation’s (Cal Wellness) “Be Well, Lead Well” is a sabbatical program model that prioritizes rest and recovery for California health equity nonprofits. This initiative offers flexible grants that center the leader’s rejuvenation while strengthening interim leadership.

• The O2 Initiatives' O2 Sabbatical Award offers leaders support for self-care and intentional succession planning, targeting nonprofit executive directors across San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties.

• The Durfee Foundation's Do-It-Yourself Sabbatical Guide for Nonprofits, with Sample Policies offers a realistic, step-by-step blueprint for organizations looking to implement internal rest policies and manage interim leadership structures without outside funding.

* The Cal Wellness "Be Well, Lead Well" sabbatical program inspired the title of this newsletter.