Annual Report
Fiscal Year 2018
We believe in the promise of Los Angeles.
The Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles connects private and philanthropic resources with public sector reach, forging partnerships that address this city’s most pressing challenges.
A letter from our Chair & President & C.E.O.
Dear partners, supporters and Angelenos,
This year marked the fourth operating year of the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles. Since 2014, we have forged unique partnerships from the abundance of talent found in Los Angeles’ philanthropic, private and public sectors.
This Annual Report looks back over our fourth fiscal year, from July 2017 through June 2018. With the benefit of a few reflective months, we see three themes emerge that tell the story of our accomplishments: Inclusion and Equity, Creative Capital, and Innovation. They are the intertwined pillars of an organization that has been built to draw on Los Angeles’ greatest resources in order to take on its most pressing challenges.
As you can see in this report, in addition to shining a light on the individual programs and ventures that represent these values, we are proud to introduce a handful of the individuals who have been a part of our programs’ successes.
You’ll meet the leaders of tomorrow who are pursuing their dreams through efforts like Summer Night Lights, Los Angeles College Promise and the Bloomberg i-team’s Pledge to Patrol. You’ll also get to see some of the leaders of today at work, such as the city’s new Chief Procurement Officer, a position that was created through the work of the Fund’s Operations Innovation Team.
This year also marked an important transition for the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles—the departure of Deidre Lind, whose passion and labor shaped the Fund’s first four years, and the arrival of Jeremy Bernard, who takes the helm of the Fund at a critical time for the City. We toast Deidre’s accomplishments as we walk towards a future of ever more dynamic—and ever more needed—partnerships between public, private, and philanthropic entities.
Your continued support makes it possible for us to renew our commitment to this innovative programming with measurable results and impact alongside transparency and independence. Please follow our efforts throughout the year to come at mayorsfundla.org and on social media. Together with you, we are building enduring connections in our City of Angels.
Marc I. Stern & Jeremy Bernard
Marc I. Stern
Chair
Jeremy Bernard
President & C.E.O.
Activate
Facilitate
Spark
As an independent nonprofit, the Fund is uniquely situated to cultivate new ideas and expand on what works. Across Los Angeles, the Fund supports dozens of programs that promote equity and inclusion, aid the most vulnerable, foster economic opportunity, advance government effectiveness, enhance community safety, and much more. Here we take a look at those initiatives broken down into three categories: Activate, Facilitate, and Spark.
Activate
Lead innovative solutions to civic problems.
Brand L.A.+ LA Original
A platform for L.A.’s vibrant creative economy and diverse local makers with a brand that gives back.
Save the Drop
A bold, bilingual, water conservation awareness campaign that confronts drought and spans the city.
Economic Development Fund
Boosting small business and entrepreneurship with private sector expertise and public sector reach.
Operations Innovation Team
Drawing on cross-sector expertise to reform the City’s key operating systems.
Sustainable Development Goals
In partnership with the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, we’re working to apply the United Nations’ powerful framework right here in L.A. through an SDG Executive Fellowship.
Los Angeles State of Women & Girls Address and Young Women’s Assembly
A unique gathering of multi-sector leaders and hundreds of LAUSD students to highlight and build gender equity in L.A.
Disaster Relief
Making L.A. more resilient with a fundraising hub and resources for immediate disaster relief.
L.A. College Promise
An education-pipeline partnership effort to expand college access, which is now a model for all of California.
Mayor’s Office of Volunteer Engagement
Creating new solutions to support Angelenos who want to make a positive change in this city.
Facilitate
Serve as a steward of resources to civic programs.
Domestic Abuse Response Team
Trained survivor advocates partner with police officers, providing vital services to Angelenos affected by domestic violence.
Public Art & Pacific Standard Time L.A/L.A.
Partnering with the Getty Foundation and the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs to produce a citywide exhibition of Latin American and Latino art.
L.A. Business Portal
An online destination making it easier for Angelenos to plan, start, manage, and grow local businesses.
Purposeful Aging
Finding ways to make L.A. a more welcoming place for people of all ages.
Hire L.A. Youth
Coordinating public and private resources to expand job opportunities for L.A.’s next generation of talent.
Summer Night Lights
An award-winning, nationally recognized model for effective civic partnerships that provides safety, space, and programming for youth and families.
Homelessness: Shelter Activation Innovation Fund
Partnership efforts that confront housing shortages, help veterans and families, and turn lives around.
Great Streets
This is an initiative to support small businesses along the city’s first fifteen Great Streets.
Bloomberg i-team
A nexus for cutting-edge, data-driven techniques to make L.A.’s government more effective.
Leonard Hill Arts Plaza
Creating an arts plaza adjacent to the reconstructed Sixth Street Bridge.
Citizenship & Immigration
Support for programs that help L.A.’s many immigrants access services and integrate into life in this city.
Mayor’s Young Ambassadors
Providing young adults from underserved communities an opportunity to serve as ambassadors through international exchange experiences.
National League of Cities 2018 City Summit
The Fund served as a fiscal partner with the City in hosting the 2018 National League of Cities Annual City Summit.
Evolve Entertainment Fund
Supporting a cross-sector initiative to help the entertainment industry increase diversity and broaden its creative potential.
Mobility & Transportation
Innovative machine learning technologies that help traffic planners study the movement of pedestrians and bicycles, maximizing safety for everyone on the road.
Promise Zone
The Young Ethnographers summer jobs program gave youth from L.A.’s Promise Zone a chance to survey their communities and build skills.
Spark
Launch innovative, high-risk expansion and pilot programming.
L.A. Cyber Lab
A public-private partnership to create the nation’s first city-based cybersecurity lab.
Youth Employment Pilot
A tech-driven program providing young people with new ways to access employers and build lasting careers.
Spanish Business Portal Translation
Making the L.A. Business Portal easily accessible to even more enterprising Angelenos.
Reentry Legal Clinic
Supporting a free legal clinic to help former offenders get back on their feet and build better lives.
Community Engagement on Homelessness
An outreach campaign building inclusive solutions for unhoused Angelenos.
Program Spotlights
A closer look at some of our best work this year.
Homelessness: Shelter Activation Innovation Fund
We’re backing temporary housing at the Hollywood YWCA to give unsheltered women, including transgender women, a bridge home.
L.A. College Promise
Through strong partnerships, we’re making it possible for more young people to attend college, building models for statewide action.
Meet Michelle:
“Now I want to get my Associate’s degree in Sociology and transfer to CSUN. I’m going to become a social worker so I can help a lot of kids out.”
“I was born in El Salvador and went to Arleta High School in the Valley. My parents always wanted us to go to school. I wanted to go to CSUN and study psychology. I just switched to sociology.
“College recruiters came to my high school and told us about L.A.’s College Promise. I thought it was a really good idea. My mom wasn’t working at the time, and my two sisters both had to drop out because of money problems. So the opportunity to have a year given to us is a great honor.
“Now I want to get my Associate’s degree in Sociology and transfer to CSUN. I’m going to become a social worker so I can help a lot of kids out.
“Everybody: take this opportunity! Nobody gets a year for free without having to pay anything. Don’t take that for granted.”
Michelle Caballero is an L.A.’s College Promise participant. She is currently studying Sociology at L.A. Mission College.
Operations Innovation Team
In partnership with The Los Angeles Coalition for the Economy & Jobs, we launched a cross-sector team of experts to improve city government processes. One result: the on-boarding of L.A.’s first Chief Procurement Officer.
Meet Michael:
“We’re currently working on 20 initiatives. We’re especially looking for places where we can enable change with technology in a simple way.”
“I worked in the city of New York as Chief Procurement Officer, but Los Angeles is my hometown.
“When I first got here, L.A. procurement professionals had no standard way to share best practices. So we quickly instituted monthly meetings and created an internal website. We also created an online certification process for vendors.
“We’re currently working on 20 initiatives. We’re especially looking for places where we can enable change with technology in a simple way.
“We want to be inclusive, responsible, and modern. We want to increase bidder diversity, be transparent and accessible, and develop a best-in-class user experience for vendors. That’s something the public sector has struggled with, historically.”
Michael Owh is Los Angeles’s first Chief Procurement Officer. The establishment of that position was a recommendation of the Operations Innovation Team.
Brand L.A. + LA Original
LA Original provides a platform to showcase diverse makers and promote locally designed, assembled, or manufactured goods through a line of L.A.-branded products, which are available for sale online, at local/international retailers, and its own storefront at LAX’s T1
Meet Rodolfo:
“For us, musicians, artists, stylists, bloggers, and the many small and large production artisans in Los Angeles make our city so great.”
How has LA inspired or contributed to your style as a creator and entrepreneur?
“As native Angelenos and sons of immigrant seamstresses, my business partner Andrew and I have been committed to manufacturing in Los Angeles since we launched Pocket Square Clothing. The cultural fabric and intersection of all creative fields in Los Angeles is at the heart of our creative endeavors. Art, architecture, fashion, music, and film in this city inform and propel our brand. The colors, prints, textiles, and diverse people of Los Angeles are like no other.”
What would you say to someone who wants to enter a creative field in LA?
“If you are a creative, Los Angeles is the place to be. Doing it alone is extremely hard so you need to find your community of supporters. We attribute our success to the many influencers and collaborators of this city. For us, musicians, artists, stylists, bloggers, and the many small- and large- production artisans in Los Angeles make our city so great.”
Rodolfo Ramirez is the Executive Creative Director of Pocket Square Clothing, an LA Original Maker.
L.A. Cyber Lab
Launched in August 2017, the Los Angeles Cyber Lab is a first-of-its-kind public-partnership — a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting personal and proprietary information from malicious cyber threats by facilitating and promoting innovation, education, and information sharing between Los Angeles’ public and private sectors.
Reentry Legal Clinic
We spearheaded a legal clinic at Loyola Law School for formerly incarcerated Angelenos, paving the way for Project imPACT, a Mayor’s Office of Reentry expansion.
Evolve Entertainment Fund
We are pioneering a multi-sector alliance to build career opportunities for women, people of color, and low-income Angelenos in the entertainment industry.
Meet Erin:
“Through Evolve, I spoke to people who are in the industry and even went to Warner Brothers and Netflix. It makes me excited for what’s coming next.”
“I was a dog-groomer full-time, and I also went to school full time. Who’s going to hire a ‘previous dog groomer’?
“Through Evolve, I spoke to people who are in the industry and even went to Warner Brothers and Netflix. It makes me excited for what’s coming next.
“To everyone who closes the door on black women, we do belong in this industry. I belong in this industry, and I want to thank Mayor Garcetti for opening that door for me.”
Erin Collins received a paid internship at Innovative Artists Literary Agency through the Evolve Entertainment Fund, and is now working in the agency’s mailroom.
Summer Night Lights
Our continuing support turned city parks into beacons of community safety and participation, building on a 10-year track record of success.
Meet Aileen:
“Summer Night Lights has given my community a place to look forward to.”
“My community is grateful that they don’t have to worry about food or keeping their kids occupied during the summer. They know that for most of the summer, they can just walk down the street and enjoy the party that the Youth Squad put together for the community.
“As stressful as it may be, it’s all worth it when a community member comes up to you at the end of the night and thanks you. For some of our families and their kids, Summer Night Lights might be like going to Disneyland. This is why I return. Summer Night Lights has given my community a place to look forward to.”
Aileen Sierra was a Summer Night Lights participant in 2016 who returned as a Youth Squad staff member in 2017 and 2018. She has worked at the Wilmington Recreation Center and the Normandale Recreation Center.
Bloomberg i-team
The i-team graduated from a Bloomberg Philanthropies grant-funded unit to a city operation bringing data and design driven innovation to City Hall and Los Angeles. The i-team recently won $1M to expand their housing pilot and incentivize homeowners to build accessory dwelling units for social good.
Meet Mariyah:
“The Pledge to Patrol program has provided me with the chance to apprentice so that I could be better qualified and more ready on day one as a police officer in service of Angelenos.”
Why did you join Pledge to Patrol?
“I had a great role model growing up. My aunt was an LAPD officer who deeply inspired me to join the youth programs at LAPD. I graduated from the Police Orientation Preparation Program (youth program) when I was 19 years old, but LAPD doesn’t hire you until you’re 21. I was working at In-and-Out, then Pledge for Patrol came along and gave me an opportunity to do real work with the department and prepare for my career until I was age eligible to apply. This has been a dream job for me my entire life. The Pledge to Patrol program has provided me with the chance to apprentice so that I could be better qualified and more ready on day one as a police officer in service of Angelenos.”
What did you do in the program?
“I served as an ‘Associate Community Officer’ in Pledge to Patrol. I worked with officers at Rampart Station. I comforted children caught up in custody battles and other support work. I supported officers in the field. And now I’m back at Rampart as a sworn officer. I couldn’t be more excited for this opportunity.”
Pledge to Patrol is an initiative of the Bloomberg i-team. Mariyah Delgado is the first Pledge to Patrol alumna to graduate from the Los Angeles Police Academy and become a full-time sworn police officer.
Public Art / Pacific Standard Time: L.A. / L.A.
We partnered with the Department of Cultural Affairs on a unique exhibition of Modernist Latin American art in conjunction with region-wide Pacific Standard Time: L.A./L.A. programming.
Financials
Program vs. Operations
Total Expenses By Program
Total Revenue vs Total Expenses
A letter from our Mayor.
Dear friends,
There is no such thing as a typical day in Los Angeles. Every day, in unexpected ways, millions of Angelenos meet one another to face the challenges and possibilities of a great world city.
At Loyola Law School, that could mean a young law student giving a formerly incarcerated person the help they need to find their way back to the workforce. On Skid Row, an artisan may be teaching a craft to formerly homeless women. In a glass tower on Sunset Boulevard, it might mean an entertainment company throwing open its doors to create opportunities for aspiring youth of color. In a small building not far from City Hall, it could mean cybersecurity experts fending off new threats to local businesses and residents.
Partnerships like these—and many more described in this report—come about because the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles connects a vast city to itself. Combining the flexibility of the private sector with the reach of the public sector, the Fund allows the best ideas in Los Angeles to find the support they need and the reach to make a difference.
I thank the Fund’s staff, board, and partners for your hard work. I’m proud to continue connecting Los Angeles with you.
Sincerely,
Eric Garcetti
Mayor
