Entries in the connect category Learn about the challenge.

Advancement Project California

The Los Angeles Regional Census Table

No place in the U.S. is harder to count in the census than L.A. County — period. Undercounting our residents means losing billions of dollars in federal funds for schools, housing and other vital community services. The Los Angeles Regional Census Table is a group of nonprofits mobilizing north from the Antelope Valley, all the way south to Long Beach, to ensure every Angeleno — including immigrants, children and youth, people experiencing homelessness, and the LGBTQ community — is counted.

Ahdom_Sayre

OP: A New Urban Resource

OP will be the first of a series of public spaces designed specifically for wellness, productivity, and environmental education to be built throughout Los Angeles. It will function as a refuge for increased productivity and self-care, and serve as a beacon for the future of urban environmental design. Through the deployment of a scientifically-backed, human-tuned natural landscape optimized for work and life, OP will contribute to making LA the best place to LEARN, CREATE, PLAY, CONNECT & LIVE.

Changeist, formerly Big Citizen HUB

Connecting young social changemakers across LA

We immerse young people in a 6-month civic action experience, exploring the social justice issues they care most about. Over the next year, we will increase impact by 50% through the implementation of AmeriCorps members into our current program model. By utilizing AmeriCorps members, we will engage 300 youth annually across Los Angeles, giving them space on Saturdays to talk about and address our most pressing issues, creating pathways for them to design and nurture a more just society.

BREATHE California of Los Angeles County

Blue Sky LA

BREATHE LA is seeking support for Blue Sky LA, an air quality improvement program fueled by volunteer projects to help us clean our air by the 2028 Olympics. We’ll engage residents through monthly volunteer opportunities, track effectiveness by identifying the number of people participating in each event, and quantify reductions in harmful emissions via a digital platform. Our goals are to engage residents, promote collaboration, and establish LA as the global leader in reducing air pollution.

connect Finalist

C It Productions, LLC

Monochrome- Police work is...

I am creating a teaching tool using film production to capture the attention of those most impacted by use of force and police brutality. To appeal to our youth who are bombarded by quick highly entertaining clips we need to use this powerful medium to effect change.

connect Finalist

California Center For Economic Initiatives

GARIFUNA INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS FILM FESTIVAL

Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival (GIIFF) is an annual festival where film makers, leaders, and members of indigenous communities are recognized for their contributions to the betterment of indigenous people. GIIFF showcases a variety of films and documentaries created by indigenous storytellers as well as panel discussions, workshops and cultural presentations. This annual festival reconciles, entertains and portrays the very diverse and brilliant cultures of indigenous people.

California Common Cause, NALEO Educational Fund, Disability Rights California, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice - LA

Voter's Choice California - Los Angeles

In March 2020, a new voting experience will be implemented for Los Angeles County voters, including new technology and a transition from polling places to Countywide vote centers, allowing voters to vote anywhere in the county. We will pilot a public education campaign for LA County voters to learn about and experience the new voting system through the Fall 2019 Mock Election. We will also collect feedback from voters to help ensure a seamless rollout of the new voting experience.

CALmatters

LA2050 Storytelling Hub

LA2050 fuels the most exciting ideas for the future. We'll build a hub for three kinds of stories about LA2050 projects: Policy analysis of issues and solutions tied to each initiative, stories from initiative leaders about what's being done on the ground, and (the best part!) first-person storytelling (audio, video, VR, text) by the people the programs serve. We’ll do this in multiple languages, collect it in the LA2050 Storytelling Hub and share it with dozens of partner news organizations.

CASA of Los Angeles

Help Keep Youth in Foster Care Out of Juvenile Delinquency

Los Angeles County is working to keep young people out of the juvenile delinquency system by providing “diversion” programs. However, youth in foster care are often excluded from these programs because they do not have a parent to oversee their participation. CASA/LA seeks to recruit and train 400 volunteers to serve as advocates for youth in the foster care system who are facing time in juvenile delinquency and who need a community volunteer so they may participate in these diversion programs.

connect Winner

City of Los Angeles Information Technology Agency (ITA)

GoDigital! Digital Literacy Program

The City of LA is seeking funding to support its Digital Inclusion work, specifically the expansion of Digital & Data Literacy programming to Angelenos in underserved communities. Funding will support educational programs to equip under-connected Angelenos with the skills to actively engage with online and application driven City and other services. The education will be designed to ‘meet people where they are’, with respect to how they are currently using technology to gain online access.

Civic Innovation Lab

Pro Bono Tech

Our Pro Bono Tech program harnesses local tech talent for the public good. We bridge the digital divide between the technology and public interest sectors by bringing together teams of digital professionals to provide their services pro bono on projects for local government and community-based organizations. This high-touch program increases the technical capacity, and therefore the efficacy and efficiency, of our partner organizations.

human-I-T

Transforming E-Waste into Opportunity

We take in unwanted technology (often thought of as "e-waste") from businesses and residents, fix it, and donate it back to low-income Angelenos free-of-charge. The outcome is straightforward: less technology waste and more people with technology. We pair donated computers with free or low-cost internet & digital training. These connections ensure Angelenos have the means to engage in civic processes and share local resources for events, housing, volunteerism, and so much more.

Human Rights Foundation

Art in Protest LA Residency

We would like to host various artists from around the world who are seeking a free and creative space to showcase their art and tell their stories. Our first artist would be Saudi feminist Mural Artist, Ms. Saffaa, who we hope to bring to LA to create a work inspired the "I Am My Own Guardian" movement. This work would coincide with a drive across the United States with the founder of the Saudi Women 2 Drive Movement, Manal al-Sharif.

connect Finalist

Hytch, LLC.

Let's Hytch LA

Hytch requests the support of LA2050 to deploy its smartphone app in the Los Angeles region to increase public transit ridership, decrease traffic, improve air quality, and take action based on verifiable commuter data. Hytch will enable the community to LEARN the benefits of environmental responsibility, CREATE a healthier region, PLAY in less trafficked, cleaner public spaces, CONNECT with fellow users to create carbon-neutral rides, and LIVE in a more connected, sustainable environment.

In the Making

In the Making: Framing the Future of Los Angeles

This spring, In the Making (ITM) will launch its flagship boutique in East Los Angeles. Our primary staff and stakeholders are low-income youth and youth transitioning out of foster care. ITM provides wraparound services through our "E3 Leadership" program, prioritizing 1)employment 2)empowerment and 3)entrepreneurship. Additionally, we host community events and provide in-kind donations to a plethora of non-profits, schools, and those who directly serve the homeless population in LA.

Inspiring Service

LA Connect 2050

Support is needed to create and launch LA Connect 2050, a comprehensive community-wide volunteer guide to empower more Angelenos to easily find their meaningful ways to help (volunteer) in this region. This beautiful, mobile-friendly and frictionless platform is based on a successful suite of technology developed to inspire, empower and engage more people in volunteerism. Our platforms are now active in Ohio and Nevada and are being developed for other communities from coast to coast.

Investing in Place

Better Buses for LA

Our pop up bus lane project will empower Angelenos fed-up with traffic to change LA’s on-street reality and untangle buses from cars. This project team will leverage the trust the project team has built with elected officials and community members to launch a bus service for all that inexpensively removes people stuck in traffic.

connect Finalist

JOY FACTORY

An artist run social clubhouse in Chinatown with an itinerary of music and art events, supper clubs, movie nights, Factory Forum speaker events and wellness studio sessions. Profits fund a bespoke internship program for people who are ready to get off the streets and into employment, while receiving one on one mentorship with well matched clubhouse members. Our interns are equal members of the clubhouse, receiving all the massage and self care sessions that the paying members do but with no charge, free professional training with our employment partners, free confidence building therapy with experienced counsellors and showers prior to sessions.

LA Forward

LA 101 Guide

Building on the success of our own ballot guides and the national Indivisible Guide, we’ll create the LA 101 Guide and make the center of a 10-month campaign to convey how local government really works and how you can make a difference. It’ll cover key elected and appointed officials, the main levers of powers, how can average citizens make an impact, and more. It’ll be available through multiple languages and media, including an interactive website and serialized social media posts.

LawMaker

LawMaker.io: Empowering Civilian Policy-Making for LA’s Homelessness Crisis

LawMaker.io has designed a public, yearlong project for Angelenos, civic organizations, and elected officials to collaboratively discuss solutions for homelessness & build grassroots political support for tangible change.

Living Through Giving Foundation

Love Wall - Los Angeles

In an effort to further connect, unite, and inspire humanity the #HashtagLunchbag initiative, and Living Through Giving organization at large, seek to create a digital “love wall” to share messages for people experiencing homelessness and community members at large. Messages will rotate, and each message will be featured for roughly 60 seconds at a time, throughout one month.

M2M Bell

Free WiFi & Internet of Things Connectivity

Our initial focus will be low data rate "things", followed by higher data rate voice and video. The patented technology we've developed has won IEEE and a Google Research Awards after demonstrations in Barcelona and Philadelphia. Now we need to complete the coding, adding rules for mobility, and rules for devices people already own. We need WiFi research hardware, as well as the hardware that will create the first base station antennas at USC, the LA Chamber and the LA Cleantech Incubator.

Mighty Companions, Inc.

Making L.A. a Friendlier City

We all want L.A. to be a friendlier place, and all we need to do to make that happen is to get us talking to each other. Making L.A. a Friendlier City will get people to do that. It gives people permission and encouragement to take a break from their devices and engage with one another in short conversations the old-fashioned way, person to person. Imagine how the vibe of L.A. could change if we were connecting with each other at the movies, in a market, at events, or on a line at Starbucks!

NAVEL

NAVEL invites communities and individuals from Los Angeles and around the world to connect meaningfully with one other through our free and low-cost public programming and events, our collaborative learning platform called ASSEMBLIES, or via our Collective Residency program, where we nurture and support people and ideas while they take root and begin to grow. We are seeking support in order to properly fund our core activities and programs, while ensuring they remain accessible and open to all.

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles

On Location: The Los Angeles Video Project

NFMLA will host the 9th edition of the organization’s annual On Location: The Los Angeles Video Project at Sunset Las Palmas Studios on October 5th, 2019. The project invites local LA independent filmmakers from diverse communities to express their vision of LA by crafting a film under five-minute long based on the prompt “What’s your L.A.?” NFMLA then gives these artists the opportunity to showcase their films to hundreds of local residents at an event in the heart of Los Angeles.

Novelly

We are currently developing Novelly, a reading app that doubles as civic education for young people. We use relatable and engaging young adult novels as a starting point for discussion and action with young people around some of the most challenging and pressing issues affecting them and their communities. Over the next year, we will partner with schools, libraries and youth-serving organizations in order to pilot the app with 5,000 young people across Los Angeles County.

Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, Census 2020 Initiative

Census 2020 Goodwill Ambassadors Program

The Census Goodwill Ambassadors (CGA) program is the City of Los Angeles’ effort to recruit, train, and deploy volunteers to assist with informing, educating and motivating hard-to-count populations in Los Angeles to respond to the 2020 census questionnaire. CGAs will effectively be the face and voice of Census 2020 on-the-ground outreach efforts. Obtaining this grant will allow us to provide micro-grants to CGA volunteers to carry out education and outreach activities.

ONEgeneration

ONEgeneration Senior Enrichment Center

ONEgeneration’s Senior Enrichment Center serves a diverse aging community for older adults as a result of integrated community partners, grass root efforts, and incorporating aspects of social connectedness and intergenerational programming. OSEC's primary focus is to provide an engaging environment by incorporating specialty services, 100+ weekly classes, access to health education & wellness services, volunteer & mentoring programs, and social activities for a growing aging population.

connect Finalist

PLUS ME Project

Every Story Matters: Training 1,000 Volunteers To Share Their Stories With The Youth of Los Angeles

PLUS ME Project will recruit and train 1,000 individuals to share their stories with youth throughout Los Angeles. Through our partnerships with various school districts and charter organizations, we will bring our volunteers into hundreds of classrooms throughout the city to inspire the next generation through the power of storytelling. Together, we will help connect 1,000 relatable role models through our training sessions with over 25,000 students in one year.

connect Finalist

ProCon.org

LA Youth Civics in Action

Nonpartisan ProCon.org researches controversial issues, trains teachers and provides tools for civic education.This initiative combines election research and resources with ActionCivicsCA's competitive public speaking and community action projects. Tying student speeches and community projects to 2020 election issues, we'll inspire Angelenos to participate in neighborhood councils and vote. This will have lasting, transformative impacts on students, their families, schools, and communities.

Rock the Vote

Empowering LA Youth to Engage in the Civic Process

Rock the Vote will help build a new generation of Los Angeles civic leaders and volunteers through: 1) Democracy Class, a fun, interactive high school curriculum about pre-registering, voting, participating in the census, and getting involved in or running for a seat on a Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, and 2) create-a-thons with local artists and activists to develop compelling messages and original content about voting and the census that will be shared nationwide through social media.

connect Winner

Sense LA

Sense LA is a work of Socially Engaged Art and Systems Thinking which uses deep thinking, design management and manufacturing, art, and technology to help people from all backgrounds and abilities, have a voice in their community, understand their city and their place within it, and create fresh perspectives, together. During the next year, we will be working with organizations across the City to maximize our creative potential, and ultimately help visualize and guide our communal decisions.

Shared Harvest

SHF curates flexible opportunities to leverage talent in the nonprofit sector while reducing student debt. LA has $51 billion in student debt with minorities and women being most impacted. We plan to reverse the brain drain in resource poor communities of LA with our approach to increase human capital by re-engaging professionals in social impact. Through partnerships with cities and businesses, we're changing this liability into a tremendous asset and a more diverse volunteer workforce.

Team Rubicon

Team Rubicon Disaster Relief

Team Rubicon consistently recruits, trains, engages, and deploys volunteers to serve communities impacted by disaster. Team Rubicon has launched 319 operations throughout our 9 year history and currently has over 95,000 volunteers, approximately 67% of which are military veterans from each branch of service. Team Rubicon strives to provide rapid, long-lasting relief to communities most in need following natural disasters.

The Civics Center

Students Take the Lead: Sparking Peer to Peer Voter Registration in High Schools

California allows eligible 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote. State law requires high schools to identify a person responsible for distributing voter registration cards. Yet most high schools do not have the resources or training to implement these laws. The Civics Center has launched a pilot project to provide resources to empower students and school communities to take ownership of their future and take advantage of these laws. We propose to expand this work throughout LA County.

The Editorialist LA

With this grant, we can finally turn The Editorialist LA into a central, digital guide to Los Angeles that covers food and nightlife, shopping, fashion, beauty, fitness, activities, and everything in between with a face that people can recognize and trust. This support would allow us to expand our content offerings and relaunch the business to focus even more on Los Angeles and highlight our local businesses. We are also planning to create a digital video series focused on Los Angeles, with each episode exploring a new neighborhood, business, restaurant, activity, local figurehead, social service, and more.

Tunson Leadership Foundation

Xavier's Place for Exceptional Children

Xavier's place is a center for our local West SFV youth and young adults living with disabilities, where they can come to socialize and be fully engaged in meaningful life activities with typical peers, community leaders and other adults. For most of these individuals, public and private schools are their sanctuary and solis but unfortunately they age out at 22 years and are left in somewhat solitude, isolation and lack of fulfillment.

Union Rescue Mission

Every Family Off the Streets

We will connect families to housing and services and motivate Angelenos to get every family off the streets of Los Angeles. This project will connect 1,500 families experiencing homelessness to housing and services. It will empower 35,000 Angelenos to volunteer and become active participants in the fight to end homelessness. We believe that together we can transform lives and help make LA the best place to connect.

connect Finalist

United Parents and Students

United Parents and Students: Developing Cultures of Civic Engagement Across Los Angeles

United Parents and Students envisions Los Angeles as a city where political power accurately reflects the population’s diversity. UPAS will continue to train and empower low-income community members to voice their concerns, engage city officials, and mobilize thousands of students and families to vote. It will also launch a broader activation strategy to raise awareness among Angelenos of the scale and impact of poverty, homelessness, underemployment, violence, and lack of access to healthcare.

VOTERUNLEAD

Women Lead L.A.: Mobilizing Women to Collaborate, Lead, and Make Positive Change

VoteRunLead wants to train an incredibly diverse group of everyday women -- entrepreneurs, CEOs, mothers, nonprofit leaders -- to become active leaders in their communities. Online and in-person trainings will empower and motivate them to run for office, connect with elected officials, mobilize their neighbors, speak out on issues, and more. The result of increased women's leadership will be waves of positive change in neighborhoods, across L.A., for all people.

World Harvest

World Harvest - feeding families

Help in reducing the need for food among low income individuals and families. Families and individuals are provided with foods such as vegetables and fruits that are essential for a balanced diet, but are costly for low income households. Those benefitting from our programs, having access to a balanced meal with fruits, vegetables and cereals, reduced the danger factor of developing high blood pressure or diabetes, among other common ailments related to poor diets.

connect Finalist