An L.A. Program Takes a Unique Approach to Participatory Grantmaking — Putting it to a Vote

Members of the LA2050 Grants Challenge cohort gathered together recently to talk about the issues that matter most to them. Photo: SaraJoy Salib / LA2050

In recent years, participatory grantmaking and other efforts to democratize philanthropy have become big topics of interest in the sector, with experts and movement leaders alike encouraging funders to share power when it comes to how they make grant decisions. Often, this looks like including members from impacted communities in program planning and decision-making panels. 

A grants challenge by the Los Angeles-based Goldhirsh Foundation is doing things a little differently. Instead of relying solely on program officers, board members or committees to decide on the funding priorities, Goldhirsh asks the people of Los Angeles to decide which issue areas get funded. This is done through the annual LA2050 Grants Challenge, which first launched nine years ago. 

The purpose of the challenge is simple but ambitious: to fund organizations that will change the status quo and create a better future for all of Los Angeles. In previous years, LA2050 asked Los Angeles residents to directly choose which nonprofit organizations would receive funding. This year, the challenge asked them instead to weigh in on which of 31 issues Goldhirsh should focus its funding on. According to Goldhirsh, more than 8,000 Angelenos from 92% of the city’s zip codes cast their votes. Some of the top issues chosen were affordable housing and homelessness, BIPOC- and women-owned businesses, climate and the environment, community safety, immigrant and refugee support, and income inequality. 

After voting on the issues ended, LA2050 opened grant applications to organizations that focus on the issues that were selected. This year, LA2050 awarded more than $2.35 million to 37 organizations. Of that, Goldhirsh granted $1 million to 15 organizations, and several major foundation partners — the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Snap Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation and the John N. Calley Foundation — granted $1.7 million combined to organizations of their own choosing. 

From Goldhirsh, the 10 winning organizations each received $75,000, and five runners-up received $50,000. Both winning organizations and runners-up also received access to staff support from LA2050. The Annenberg Foundation provided $10,000 in DEI capacity-building grants to the winning organizations. Although partner funders chose their own grantees, they were selected from the 31 issues originally listed by LA2050. See the full list of grantees here.

At a recent event celebrating this year’s winners, runners-up, and funding partners, Tara Roth, president of the Goldhirsh Foundation, said that the grants challenge is a “different way of engaging Angelenos.”

“Angelenos are essentially creating a policy platform and a philanthropy platform that then we’re putting our money behind, and that we’re having our partners put their money behind,” she said. 

Envisioning a better future

Although the Goldhirsh Foundation has been around for decades, it shifted the focus of its grantmaking to Los Angeles in 2012. Shortly after doing so, Goldhirsh commissioned research about what L.A. would look like in 2050. In its original Los Angeles 2050 report, Goldhirsh provided a framework that would help “harness the area’s untapped potential” and laid out a roadmap for getting there. Together with Angelenos, academics, experts, advisors and partners, Goldhirsh outlined a set of goals for Los Angeles to reach by 2050. 

These goals include having a “well-resourced and culturally responsive” education system, being an “international leader in innovation” and a center of entrepreneurial activity, providing access to parks and sustainable spaces for recreation, being a civically engaged region, and having the lowest poverty rate and income inequality in the nation. 

“We launched the challenge to help encourage people to read the report. And then to actualize what we had found, we sort of put it to Angelenos,” Roth said. “We said, ‘Here are the challenges that we’ve seen based on working with academics, based on doing community outreach, listening sessions. How are you going to make a difference?’”

Goldhirsh later shifted its approach from having voters choose the organizations that would receive funding to choosing the issues the foundation would focus on. The original approach was at times contentious, for reasons you can understand. Recall the ill-fated and much-maligned CBS show “The Activist,” which was originally envisioned as a competition series that would pit activists against one another to see who would win the opportunity to secure funding. 

“Some organizations said, ‘Oh, it’s a popularity contest… we have a larger social media presence so we’ll get more votes,’” Roth said. “We got feedback from different organizations, and we said, ‘Look, it’s an election year. People have been immersed in their silos and in their own spaces. What can we collectively create as a platform for Los Angeles?’” 

In its latest version, LA2050 offered more than 30 issues, and then had Angelenos vote online to narrow down which received funds. According to Roth, voting was conducted in both English and Spanish. Staff members set up voting booths at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and outreach partners informed constituents about the grants challenge. In addition, the inaugural class of 2015 Youth Ambassadors worked with young generations to get out the vote. 

This also opened the door for more funders to join in giving to those issues, which appealed to partners like the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. 

“We see this as an opportunity to come alongside other local partners in support of organizations that reflect our communities, that are led by members of our community, and that involve communities,” said Marc Holley, vice president of strategy and programs at the Hilton Foundation. “The way that the Goldhirsh Foundation is working on this, it brings the community and shares the decision-making power with them, and that’s inspiring to us.” 

Another advantage of this approach is that it allows larger funders like Hilton to find new organizations to fund. This is especially important in a region as big as Los Angeles, which is home to countless nonprofit organizations.

A better Los Angeles

One of the organizations honored at the ceremony was runner-up winner Nature for All, a nonprofit that focuses on environmental and social justice. Its work includes conservation, education, training and community base-building, as well as facilitating access to nature. The group works to make the region more climate resilient, protect its natural resources, create more natural spaces and bike paths in historically underserved neighborhoods, and connect people to outdoor recreational opportunities. 

According to Nature for All Executive Director Belen Bernal, this last point has been especially important since the onset of the pandemic.

“There’s a lot of momentum in this pandemic… We were all inside our homes, as you know, and nature is all around,” Bernal said. “The San Gabriel Mountains are 70% of our open space in L.A. County. So how do we increase access to them?” 

Some ways of doing so include transit programs for nature trips. Nature of All is currently in the process of developing the city’s first urban-to-nature shuttle, which would provide L.A. County families with access to the San Gabriel Mountains, removing barriers such as income or vehicle ownership. 

Another important part of Nature for All is its Leadership Academy, which finds, educates and develops environmental stewards to care for the region’s public lands and advocate for its protection. Established in 2011, the Leadership Academy has trained more than 209 participants, the majority of whom identify as low-income and/or BIPOC. 

For Azeneth Martinez, the Leadership Academy has been a crucial training tool. “We’re aware of all the inequalities and issues in L.A., but [the academy] prepares you to actually act. They give you different tools.” 

The ceremony also included past challenge participants, and gave them the opportunity to talk about their work and how the LA2050 funding has impacted them. One such organization is Crop Swap LA, which was a runner-up in last year’s challenge. 

Crop Swap LA works to address food insecurity in the region, originally as a monthly exchange of fruits and vegetables, but it’s since grown into a movement with a wider array of tactics to strengthen local, sustainable food production. 

“We grow food on unused spaces, such as front yards, in a way that is water recycling, rainwater capturing, solar-powered, and creates hyperlocal jobs,” said Jamiah E. Hargins, Crop Swap LA’s founder and executive director. 

According to Hargins, Crop Swap was able to open its first microfarm with the grant they received from the LA2050 challenge. Since then, they have secured additional funding and have opened a second location. 

For Hargins, the participatory grantmaking approach is especially meaningful. “It means that it’s the people’s choice because it’s something folks voted on. That’s a combination of action by people who are doing their maximum with just a vote, and a combination of access that the foundation itself is creating to allow that to occur.”

A combined effort

While LA2050 is strictly a philanthropic initiative, it conveys a strong sense of the importance of collaboration between sectors. Present at the ceremony were public officials including L.A. County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, both of whom spoke about the importance of the work that nonprofit organizations do. 

“The nonprofit sector… really has a critical function in helping L.A. County stay on its axis,” said Mitchell. “Whether you do direct service or organizing and advocacy, your work is fulfilling a need in all of our communities.” 

LA2050 is about innovation, Garcetti said. It allows organizations to test new pilots, to collaborate, and to accelerate their work. Sometimes, these private-sector pilots can then be implemented at the government level. This is a way in which the public and private spheres can work together to solve complex issues. 

“Philanthropy does three things: It catalyzes people. It sustains them — and that’s always the toughest with philanthropy,” Garcetti said. “And then third, I think it provides direct aid in moments of crisis.”

According to Garcetti, when the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles convened with foundation partners to prepare for the next big disaster, they did so believing it would likely be an earthquake, not a global pandemic. This preparedness and partnership, however, allowed for millions of dollars to be set aside to address the crisis. 

“I hope they’re the lessons, though, of continuing to take innovation and just figure it out, funds more like this in that first category — rewarding new stuff — and that foundations will have the patience to sustain that for the 10-, 20-year horizon, or sometimes forever,” Garcetti said.