Giving back to the communities we serve is more than just an idea – it’s in our DNA. Through our Vanir Gives Back and Vanir Champion programs, we encourage Vanir employees and their families to participate in charitable giving and activities. These activities include student outreach programs, food and toy drives, fundraising runs and walks, community improvement projects and more. At Vanir, we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk by matching our employees’ volunteer hours on an annual basis.
As a client-focused firm, we also understand that public outreach and community engagement are key elements of successfully-delivered projects. Nothing serves as a better indicator of our commitment to the communities we serve than The Dominguez Dream 501(c)(3) public nonprofit organization. The Dominguez Dream, which was founded by Vanir Chairwoman and CEO Dorene C. Dominguez in 2004, is committed to empowering children in underserved communities to achieve their full potential through literacy, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math), social-emotional learning and parent engagement programs. The Dominguez Dream works to transform the way students learn by partnering with school administrators, staff and teachers to identify the areas of greatest need.
A Message From Our Chairwoman and CEO
My late father, H. Frank Dominguez, was a lifelong learner and firm believer in education. In 1991, he attended my brother’s law school graduation from Notre Dame University, where former U.S. Olympic Committee Chair Peter Ueberroth challenged the graduating class to give back to their local elementary schools. Reflecting on his own struggles and successes, my father reached out to his former grammar school, Burbank Elementary. Being mindful that many parents were not scheduling parent-teacher conferences, he provided food baskets to families of students as an incentive to increase parent involvement in their children’s education. He encouraged countless students to do well in school, to dream big and to reach for success. Today, there is an H. Frank Dominguez Elementary School in San Bernardino in his honor.
My father was one of the area’s most successful business leaders and the same passion he had for his businesses he also had for giving back to his community. He felt strongly that the only way to make the world better was to give back and help those who were less fortunate, especially when it came to educating our youth. He was a leader and role model in our lives. Near the end of his life, he stated that his success could only be measured by how much he gave to education. The generous and kindhearted man I knew and loved passed away in January 2004.
To continue carrying out his vision of giving back, I formed The Vanir Foundation in Memory of H. Frank Dominguez in February of 2004. In 2016, the Foundation changed its name to The Dominguez Dream. My father’s legacy continues to be vivid through The Dominguez Dream by sparking aspirations, much like the ones he had as a child – to give the minds of children the ability to dream and plan for a better future. He believed that education was the key to improving the quality of life for all.
