 Mario Gutierrez, director of Agricultural Worker & Binational Programs for The California Endowment, is responsible for overseeing The Endowment’s five-year, $50 million Agricultural Worker Health Initiative (AWHI).
Gutierrez also developed Poder Popular Para La Salud del Pueblo, which connects advocates, organizers, health providers, employers, elected officials, and others with a stake in a more supportive and healthy community of farm workers. In addition to AWHI, he initiated the foundation's Agricultural Worker Health and Housing Program, a unique funding approach that has built partnerships that combine housing, health, safety, and leadership development. This $31 million, five-year loan and re-granting program has developed more than 1,100 affordable housing units in 15 California counties; its fundamental purpose is to integrate health services and resident leadership and empowerment.
He is the recipient of the 2007 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy. The award honors Gutierrez for his innovative approach to grant making–for using the power of philanthropy to promote healthful conditions for the state’s agricultural workers in the fields, communities, and health-care institutions.
A resident of Sacramento, Gutierrez works out of The Endowment’s Sacramento office. He joined The California Endowment as a senior program officer in August 1996. As a senior program officer, Gutierrez was responsible for program research, comprehensive proposal review and assessment, grant monitoring, post-grant evaluations, and special projects for the northern counties of California, excluding the San Francisco Bay counties.
Prior to joining The California Endowment, Gutierrez managed the Sierra Health Foundation’s Northern California AIDS Initiative and was responsible for the overall management of the Foundation’s $22 million initiative, Community Partnerships for Healthy Children.
Gutierrez has an extensive background in community health planning and management of foundation community-based programming as a result of his tenure with several very diverse organizations. He served as executive director of the East Valley Community Clinic; executive director and Tribal Health Planner for the California Rural Indian Health Board, Inc.; program coordinator for the State of California, Department of Health Services, Indian Health Program; Tribal Health Planner for the Toiyabe Indian Health Project; and executive director of North of Market Senior Health Council, San Francisco.
Mr. Gutierrez holds a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.
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