The Liberty Hill Foundation, Los Angeles’ social justice foundation, is pleased to announce their 2014 Fund for Change grantees. The total fund of $864,000 is being invested in 32 of the most effective community organizing groups working on economic justice and LGBTQ justice in L.A. With grants ranging from $5,000 to $40,000, a wide range of neighborhoods and needs is being supported.
Liberty Hill Deputy Director, Grantmaking, Margarita Ramirez, notes, “Choosing from among many worthy grassroots groups in Los Angeles is challenging, but we feel we are supporting some of the most promising social justice organizing work being done in L.A. county and the entire U.S. How do we know? For the past six months, Liberty Hill staff and Community Funding Board members have reviewed applications, conducted site visits and interviews, and met in collaborative decision-making sessions.”
Liberty Hill’s Community Funding Board is a brain-trust of experts that keep the organization’s knowledge of local communities close to the ground.
Liberty Hill grants are accelerating concrete social change led by the people impacted by injustice. The 2014 Fund for Change grantees are:
All Of Us Or None – $10,000
To support organizing efforts of formerly incarcerated individuals around the Ban the Box Campaign and Employee Rights Re-entry Clinic. (Fiscal sponsor: A New Way of Life)
Asian Pacific Islander Equality-LA (API Equality-LA) – $25,000
To support continued work to advance Asian Pacific Islander LGBT equality as a part of a broader and inclusive social justice movement. (Fiscal sponsor: Asian Pacific American Legal Center)
Black Women for Wellness – $15,000
To provide a gender lens to policymakers and address the impact of racism and sexism on the health and wellbeing of women and girls through organizing, voter education and training.
Californians for Justice Education Fund – $15,000
To continue the “My Future, My Voice” campaign to ensure student engagement and successful implementation in the State Board of Education regulations for the Local Control Funding Formula.
CLEAN Carwash Initiative – $24,000
To successfully negotiate labor contracts among 500 car washes and 10,000 carwash workers, with a focus on campaigns in South Los Angeles. (Fiscal sponsor: Korean Immigrant Worker Center)
Coalition for Economic Survival – $15,000
To support community organizing and advocacy activities with low-income tenants to build tenant leadership and preserve affordable housing. (Fiscal sponsor: Los Angeles Center for Economic Survival)
Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education – $20,000
To support South L.A. parents in breaking the school-to-prison pipeline by reducing push-out through school discipline and implementing alternatives to suspension and zero tolerance.
Filipino Migrant Center – $10,000
To support efforts among immigrants and youth in the South Bay around immigration reform and rights for domestic workers, and to advance its Anti-Wage Theft Campaign.
FTM Alliance/Gender Justice LA – $35,000
To continue leading campaigns to end the criminalization of transgender communities, offer more spaces for public education and healing, and develop leadership to impact social justice.
Garment Worker Center – $10,000
To launch a proactive organizing strategy for the local garment industry of 50,000 workers.
Gay-Straight Alliance Network – $30,000
To support youth-led campaigns in Long Beach, South L.A. and Boyle Heights that aim to create school and district-level change in policies to improve school climates for LGBTQ youth of color.
Housing Long Beach – $20,000
To change the existing imbalance of power in Long Beach by promoting policies that assure housing preservation, affordable housing and living wage jobs.
Immigrant Youth Coalition – $5,000
To support its Keep Our Families campaigns at high schools throughout Los Angeles County. (Fiscal sponsor: National Day Laborer Organizing Network)
Institute for Popular Education of Southern California – $25,000
To carry out its movement building strategies with low-wage working communities in the Greater Los Angeles Area.
Khmer Girls in Action – $25,000
To implement restorative justice and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) programs as alternatives to exclusionary school discipline policies and proactively support the establishment of school-based wellness centers.
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance – $38,000
To fight wage theft as well as gentrification and displacement among economically disadvantaged and underserved low-wage Koreatown residents and low-wage workers in Koreatown.
L.A. Human Right to Housing Collective – $10,000
To support a coalition aiming to build a Los Angeles citywide tenant rights movement. (Fiscal sponsor: Los Angeles Community Action Network)
LA Voice – $30,000
To support its work to increase the quality of life for immigrants and for formerly incarcerated people by fighting for rehabilitation and reentry programs, and for low-income people facing transit expansion.
Labor Community Strategy Center – $40,000
To expand the Community Rights Campaign work ending pre-prison conditions inside LAUSD as a major intervention on the mass incarceration and criminalization of Black and Latino communities.
Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition – $15,000
To promote economic justice and LGBTQ justice in low income, immigrant communities in Long Beach. (Fiscal sponsor: Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach)
Los Angeles Black Worker Center – $25,000
To support its work with a focus on public works, and on policies and practices that impact quality workforce development in the African American community. (Fiscal sponsor: UC Regents)
Los Angeles Community Action Network – $36,000
For its economic and racial justice work in the areas of tenant rights, housing preservation, civil rights, economic development and healthy food access.
People Organized for Westside Renewal – $36,000
To support its fight for the human right to housing, to protect and expand workers’ and immigrants’ rights and to make corporations pay their fair share for the common good.
Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California – $30,000
To strengthen the Association of Filipino Workers to expand geographically, and to engage in domestic workers campaigns on federal, state and local levels.
Pomona Economic Opportunity Center – $25,000
To support its Anti-Impounds Campaign to change discriminatory traffic enforcement and impound policies that use racial profiling to target immigrant drivers.
Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles – $23,000
To launch workplace justice campaigns against low-road employers engaged in discrimination, exploitation and abuse in the L.A. restaurant industry. (Fiscal sponsor: Restaurant Opportunities Center United)
Southeast Asian Community Alliance – $15,000
To build power among Southeast Asian youth and their communities by fighting for equitable economic development.
Southern California Education Fund – $20,000
To support its goal of developing a powerful group of leaders among working poor that understand the power Los Angeles County Supervisors wield and gain the capacity to impact the decisions they make.
Strategic Actions for a Just Economy – $25,000
To support efforts to eliminate slum housing, expand tenants’ rights, reform redevelopment, build community capacity and vision in land-use planning, and improve jobs and income in the Figueroa Corridor.
Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education – $30,000
To build a power base that will hold the city accountable to building a public health sector with the capacity to invest in the safety net and employment of low-income communities of color.
Tenemos que Reclamar y Unidos Salvar la Tierra-South L.A. (T.R.U.S.T-South LA) – $25,000
To support organizing campaigns to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood with transportation, recreation and food access to promote healthy living and economic vitality.
Youth Justice Coalition – $20,000
To support its work to build a youth, family and prisoner-led movement to challenge Los Angeles’ California’s and the nation’s addiction to incarceration, and race, gender and class inequality throughout the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
Second-Year Disbursements from 2013 Fund for Change Two-Year Grants
ACCE Institute – $100,000 (two-year grant)
To lead organizing among low income, senior and working class homeowners and tenants who are impacted by the foreclosure crisis.
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles – $100,000 (two-year grant)
For its Los Angeles-based work on protecting and empowering immigrant workers and their families through community organizing, civic engagement, and education.
InnerCity Struggle – $80,000 (two-year grant)
For general operating support of its work to ensure education and economic justice for the communities of East Los Angeles.