Welcoming the new St. Joseph Community Partnership Fund board chair, Joe Lumarda

Monday, August 8, 2022

St. Joseph Community Partnership Fund (SJCPF) has a new board chair, Joseph “Joe” Lumarda. He was welcomed into this new role in July, at a meeting in which every director shared a blessing for Joe in his new role.

A Little about Joe

In his August 2020 Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, “My Parents Were Essential Workers – and They Were Treated Like It”, Joe recalls how his father and mother, Ted and Josie Lumarda, worked as essential workers in service of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. In stark contrast from the reality of many essential workers today, especially marked by the challenges faced during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Joe’s parents, immigrants from the Philippines, were valued and respected employees as well as valued members of the community.

New SJCPF board chair, Joe Lumarda, center, as a child with his parents and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.

Of becoming the Board Chair of SJCPF, Joe says he “feels comfortable, and almost like he was born for this.” It certainly seems, in many ways, that he really was. Joe recalls the story of the day he was born. Mother Louis and Sisters of St. Joseph were present and when nurses asked Ted and Josie if the newborn would be named, Ted, after his father, Mother Louis matter-of-factly said, “No, his name is Joseph, because he is ours.”

Joe brings an incredible wealth of nonprofit and corporate experience in his role as SJCPF Board Chair. For the past 16 years he has been part of Capital Group, now serving as Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisor. Prior to that, he spent 16 years at the California Community Foundation, most recently as Executive VP and CEO. He worked for United Way in Orange County out of Undergraduate. His corporate, nonprofit, and philanthropic Board experience is impressive and includes over 15 years on the Sisters of St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation Board and 9 years with SJCPF. Other notable Boards upon which he has served include: The California Wellness Foundation, the Dan Murphy Foundation, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Southern California Grantmakers, USC Center for Philanthropy and Public Policy, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The list goes on. With this impressive background, one thing that stands out when talking to Joe is his calm, humble demeanor.

On Challenges and Successes in the PSJH Communities

When asked about the greatest challenges that the communities in the Providence St. Joseph Health (PSJH) footprint face in 2022, Joe did not answer with a specific issue like housing or education. He said, “Every community has its own set of challenges, and the community itself knows best what those challenges are. The wonderful thing about the approach of the SJCPF is that it is responsive and customizable to each community’s challenges, within a strategic framework of equity.”

To Joe, every community must be asked, engaged, and trusted to identify its deepest challenges and work in partnership with the Fund to respond to them.

SJCPF has partnered with communities to successfully respond to their own local challenges in many instances through its core initiatives. A couple of examples that came to mind for Joe were the work of the Kennedy Commission and residents around housing through the SJCPF Intersections Initiative, and the development of nonprofit infrastructure in the High Desert through the Community Building Initiative and the Community Recovery and Resilience Initiative.

On Vision and Faith

Joe Lumarda has vision for his role as Board chair, and that vision is not tethered to advancing a specific issue or cause. Joe’s vision is exactly what a Board chair’s vision should be. “His vision for the SJCPF Board and executive team and his empathy for our communities is precisely what we need,” said Gabriela Robles, SJCPF chief executive. “I look forward to his hands on approach to provide governance leadership to our board in the execution of our mission and in support of the implementation of deeper partnerships in the PSJH regions.”

Joe Lumarda, center, as a child with his mother and Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange at a luau.

Joe agrees that ample experience and vision alone are not all it takes to achieve one’s goals, however. Another critical element of the strength of SJCPF is its rootedness in the values of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange and the Sisters of Providence – it is the rootedness of faith. He recalls the Sisters of St. Joseph from his childhood – “the valiant women who led with faith and made difficult, keen business decisions” at the same time. Joe knows that the vision of SJCPF will be fulfilled with a combination of heart and head, soul, and mind, faith, and business sense.

We look forward to watching this vision come to fruition together, with his leadership. Welcome, Joe!