With implementation of the Affordable Care Act coming in 2014, many funders may be breathing a sigh of relief for the uninsured. But don’t let all the air out just yet.
Even after full implementation, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that some 30 million Americans will remain without health insurance. Some of these will be people who, despite the broader reach of health coverage, still will be unable to afford insurance. Others will choose to pay the fine rather than purchase insurance. Others will abstain from coverage for religious reasons. And undocumented residents are not covered by the ACA.
Regardless of the reasons, the fact remains that there will be human beings in need of care and without insurance after January 1, 2014. And, unless there is a better system available, they will do what millions before them have done: become confused by a disjointed public health care system with no clear access point, fear the out-of-pocket costs they might incur, miss out on preventative care, delay treatment, and end up in the emergency room when conditions are most critical and care is most expensive.
Recently, Putnam Community Investment Consulting had the pleasure to create a case study for a unique program that effectively closes the “cracks” that the uninsured might otherwise fall through. Healthy San Francisco (HSF) provides access to affordable, high-quality care for tens of thousands of uninsured adults each year, and has served more than 116,000 San Franciscans since it began in 2007. HSF is NOT health insurance, but it does provide many of the benefits that make patients more at ease, and more likely to seek preventative care and earlier treatment.
The case study provides a look at how HSF works, the various partners who make it successful, a breakdown of funding sources, and evidence of the programs success. There’s also a list of seven things any community can do to improve healthcare access to the uninsured.
Update: A funders teleconference on the philanthropic response to the tragedy at the Boston Marathon will be held Thursday, April 18th at 10:30a ET, sponsored by Associated Grant Makers. Click here to register. You can also visit their Disaster Relief page for additional information and updates.
The bombings in Boston were senseless, evil and tremendously sad. Like everyone, my heart goes out to all affected, and it will likely be days, weeks and months before we comprehend the full impact of this tragedy. Because I consult in philanthropy and have written and given speeches about disaster-related grantmaking, I thought I could help in a small way by quickly passing along information via Twitter about how foundations are responding to this tragedy and ways people can help. I went to the websites of what I assumed would be my “go-to” sources of information: The Boston Foundation, Associated Grant Makers (the regional association of grantmakers in Massachusetts) Council on Foundations, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the Center on Disaster Philanthropy.
To my surprise there was very little information listed, but I am passing along what I have learned and links to some of the helpful resources shared via Twitter.
The Boston Foundation’s home page lists memorial services and candlelight vigils in the Boston area during the coming days, and requests that people email them with any additional memorials. Their statement about this tragedy indicates “We continue to be in touch with state and local officials as well as other members of the nonprofit and philanthropic community, as we develop our immediate and longer-term efforts to support our community in this time of need.” I am sure we will learn more from them in the coming days and weeks, and recommend that anyone interested be sure to check their website and follow them on Twitter @Bostonfdn.
At the time of this writing, there was nothing about the Boston tragedy listed on the website of Associated Grant Makers, although they did have a tweet directing people to some very helpful resources I’ve cited below (You can follow them on Twitter at @AGMconnect). The Council on Foundations’ website included a short statement of sympathy but no additional information directing grantmakers or donors to resources, although they also shared useful information via Twitter (follow at @COF_). Similarly, there was nothing on the websites Chronicle of Philanthropy or the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.
Here are the resources I have found most helpful in my initial scan of websites and Twitter. Of course I welcome anyone to share additional and updated resources as a comment to this blog.
I realize it’s not the responsibiltiy of any one foundation, organization, or association of grantmakers to be the real-time, go-to source of information about how to make donations during the time of a disaster. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to live and work in Boston today, and I am certain that there are many behind the scenes conference calls and emails flying across the country today among very smart, seasoned philanthropists and philanthropy professionals gathering information and seeking to develop a coordinated response (and I’m hopeful we will learn more soon). I also strongly believe that it is important for philanthropy to “do no harm” and take time to plan out a response. But I do feel that it would be tremendously helpful if foundations and grantmaking associations developed communications plans as part of their own disaster preparedness planing to immediately communicate with their constituents — grantmakers, philanthropists, donors, and everyday citizens who want to help – during and following a disaster. Even if it is only, as the Boston Foundation has done, to let us know that they are working on it, to share initial resources, to request more information, and to stay tuned.
This is a guest post by P. Scott Cunningham, founder, O, Miami Festival. It was originally published on the KnightArts blog on March 19, 2013.
Three years ago, I and a group of friends started to dream up what a lot of people considered impossible: a festival that would bring poetry to all 2.6 million residents of Greater Miami.
At that time, Miami’s cultural scene was exploding. Art Basel was in full force, and we wanted to do a festival that was the opposite of the “pipe-and-blazer” readings that most people associate with poetry. We wanted to do a festival that reflected Miami’s diversity and personality.
Knight Foundation had just finished the first round of its famous “Random Acts of Culture” and we liked how those events turned everyday events into cultural occasions. What if did something like that? What if we did it every day for a month?
And that’s how O, Miami was born. In the poetry festival’s first year, we did 45 events and 19 projects in a 30-day span, and almost none of them had a recognizable headliner. (You can get a taste for it in a new report being published this week.)
As we head into our second full incarnation of the festival on April 1, we wanted to share a few of the things we learned about engaging new audiences and creating a cultural event that transcends geography, genre, and demographics.
1. The Internet is your friend, if you let it be: By the “Internet” I don’t mean your festival’s website; I’m referring to how festivals utilize the content they create. Archiving your events is nice, but no one wants to watch a static video of a performance. All it does is remind the viewer that he or she wasn’t there. Think about what travels on the web: short videos that are entertaining and self-explanatory. As we’re planning the actual events for O, Miami, we treat web-only content as its own event that we budget for just like any other. For example, in 2011 we did a project with an artist named Agustina Woodgate in which she went into Miami thrift stores and sewed poems into random items of clothing. The video we made from that project, below, got picked up by The Guardian and Time Magazine and communicates the spirit of the festival in a way we could never explain in an interview.
2. Cross-pollinate: We try to partner with other organizations as much as possible, and in ways that give them creative agency in the festival itself. Our host hotel, The Betsy South Beach, created their own reading series on their front porch. Every day in April, at 5 p.m., a poet will give a two poem reading. Yes, our visiting poets are staying there, but the hotel is also making their entire building into a vehicle for the festival. We could never do something like that on our own.
3. Be who you are: Although we try as much as possible to subvert the audience’s expectations about poetry, we’re also highly aware that poetry is always going to be, well, dorky. And that’s ok. We’ve come to learn, through the festival, that most people are dorks are heart. So while the festival is willing to stretch its audience, we won’t ever abandon poetry’s strength as a medium where people can be comfortable embracing their own intelligence.
4. Invite people who don’t fit neatly into your genre: We invited hip-hop legends Kool Moe Dee and Money Love to our poetry festival. Why not? They both have a lot to say about lyricism and are passionate about where their art form departs from the page. Sometimes it’s just as good to engage an audience in talking about what your genre is not as it is to engage them in what it is.
5. Make the audience the star: Just as we try to give partner organizations creative agency, we also want our audience to be active creative participants. There’s a lot of literature out there now about how audiences expect a higher form of engagement, but that’s not why we get them involved. We do it because we believe participation is an essential part of poetry. A poem will never be as flashy as a movie, but unlike a movie, anyone can write a “big-budget” poem. And we believe the future of the genre depends on everyone given the agency to write their own work and have it displayed publicly….like behind an airplane!
This year we have an open contest to write a 50-character poem. The winning poem will be flown behind a biplane up and down Miami Beach the weekend of April 27 and 28th. Which brings me to…
6. Create Advertising as content: The old model of advertise-in-order-to-get-audience is, in my opinion, outdated and a missed opportunity. If the only way we can reach someone is with an ad, then let’s reach them with something meaningful. In 2011, we partnered with The Poetry Society of America to bring their Poetry in Motion campaign to all 751 Miami-Dade buses. This year we’re putting poetry on 100 lamppost banners around the county. Do these ads spread the word about the festival? Yes, but they also are the festival.
7. Emphasize the local: No matter where you live, the residents of your city have strong opinions about it. Find ways to help people identify with the places that are important to them. This year we’re conducting a contest with local public radio news outlet WLRN-Miami Herald News in which we’re asking their audience to submit short poems that begin or end with the phrase “That’s so Miami.” Then we’re going to play the best ones back on the radio as well as publish them on a unique tumblr site.
8. Remember – name recognition never hurts: And I think it helps even more if it’s unexpected. In 2011, we invited the actor James Franco. He hadn’t proven himself yet as a poet, but we invited him because we could see that his passion for poetry was genuine. He was making short films based on complex works such as Frank Bidart’s “Herbert White,” and he was studying with a great poet we knew, Tony Hoagland. James’s involvement in the festival sent a message to Miami’s audience that poetry is alive and relevant.
And this year we’ve invited Megan Amram, a young comedian who writes for the NBC show Parks & Recreation. She has only published a few poems, but we were impressed by them, and we are very impressed by her as a writer in general. Personally, it’s not important to me that she hasn’t been recognized yet as a poet. I think she’s interesting, and as an organizer, if I’m not following my nose and trusting my instincts, then why am I doing this?
At the turn of the current century, after decades of academic percolation, the concept of “design thinking” began to expand rapidly in popular business literature and conversation. Although finding a clear, consistent explanation of design thinking is rather like asking bridesmaids to agree on the perfect shade of blue, Wikipedia offers this definition:
Design Thinking refers to the methods and processes for investigating ill-defined problems, acquiring information, analyzing knowledge, and positing solutions in the design and planning fields. As a style of thinking, it is generally considered the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context.
Ill-defined problems. Combining empathy, creativity, and rationality in developing a solution. Sounds perfect for philanthropy, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder then, that as design thinking has become manifest in the business world, it’s beginning to pique the interest of the funding community.
In a recent conversation with Kyle Reis, Manager for Strategy and Operations at the Ford Foundation, we pondered the question of how foundations might partner with design communities to help them learn how to more fundamentally and intentionally integrate design and design thinking into their work.
And this is already happening. One of the better-known examples of this is IDEO, a San Francisco Bay Area design firm that is a recognized frontrunner in the design thinking movement. IDEO President and CEO Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt, who then led the company’s Social Innovation group, published a flagship article, “Design Thinking for the Social Sector,” in the winter 2010 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review that has helped pave the way for further reflection on the topic. In 2011, the company started its own philanthropic arm, IDEO.org, to help bring design thinking to social problems. (Wyatt is now its co-lead and executive director.) The Chronicle of Philanthropy covered this launch with a great story about a collaboration to pilot a new, affordable system of in-home toilets for low-income urban dwellers in Ghana.
One element of this effort, OpenIDEO, focuses on leveraging crowd-wisdom by using an online platform to discuss solutions to social challenges. In this space, people from around the world can lend their knowledge, ideas and insights to help solve social problems, whether local or global. (There’s a great video there about that Ghana toilet project, too.)
And foundations themselves are focusing on ways in which design might inform and advance the work of foundations. The Ford Foundation, for instance, hosted a meeting earlier this year, Change By Design, to bring together leaders in design, social innovation, art and journalism to think creatively about digital storytelling and cutting-edge tools to visualize, map and create narratives that inspire action. (Here are some resources highlighted at that meeting).
The idea of open sharing of creativity and knowledge for common good is intriguing. The business world doesn’t own the concept of design thinking any more than the philanthropic world owns the concept of empathy, so it makes sense that the two should combine forces and resources (along with government, entrepreneurs, engaged citizens, scientists, educators, and designers) to solve social problems.
But while there are plenty of articles, information, opinions and posts from the corporate and academic perspectives about the social benefits of design thinking, it’s still relatively quiet on the philanthropic side. But that is changing. In my next post, we’ll talk about some of the conversations already taking place and efforts that are now underway, such as Public Interest Design and the School for Visual Arts Design for Social Innovation MFA program, to more systematically weave design and social change together.
And in the true spirit of design thinking, advancement comes by listening to a variety of perspectives. So why not add the voice of philanthropy to design and in the process bring the benefits of design thinking to our philanthropic work?
Have you had experience with design or design thinking in your work? If so, please share a comment!
P.S. For a quick way to better your understanding about what design thinking is and what it might do, check out the trailer for Design and Thinking, a documentary on design thinking, that was released earlier this year. Also, visit the Institute of Design at Stanford’s website and watch their 3-minute video about a design thinking boot camp course for all disciplines.
There really is no substitute for planning and preparedness when it comes to effective disaster response. An hour you spend today could save days in response time when time is most critical. Here are four good reads to start:
Best Practices in Disaster Grantmaking: Lessons from the Gulf Coast, was published by the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (now Philanthropy New York) in 2008. It describes the philanthropic responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that were deemed “successful” by funders and grantees, and offers recommended practices that can be applied to future disasters.
Recognize that there are places private philanthropy can help that government agencies might not. Situations that arise during and immediately after disasters (such as the hospital generator failure in New York or levee failure in New Orleans) can offer prime opportunities for funding academic research on causes and best practices related to those situations. Careful analysis now can make all the difference in preparation for the future.
Those not in the particular geographic area affected by the storm might connect on a different level. Look for ways to tie disaster funding into existing mission, and to leverage in-house expertise. In terms of Sandy, for example, there are opportunities to support vulnerable populations such as the elderly and infirm, as well as those who don’t speak English and may have greater needs when it comes to recovery. Mental health issues are also important to address over the long term following a disaster. Consider support for those still coping with losses from Hurricane Irene in 2011, or even those impacted by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, now seeing the memorial flooded by Sandy’s waters.
Even while focusing on immediate needs, remember that it will take some time for the full range of needs to emerge. Power loss, transportation outages, and flood-damaged homes may be top of mind, but we have yet to truly understand the impact that this storm has had on people’s lives. Be patient in planning for disaster funding. Recovery will take a long time, and funding will be needed throughout.
Recognize that the storm may expose needs not typically seen on this scale in the United States-and this will open up possibilities for future disaster planning. Plans could be developed for the more effective distribution of food during massive power outages. In addition, as sewage and standing water covers portions of communities, the risks of disease and environmental damage increase.
Support the sharing of best practices. Florida, for example, has developed stringent building codes to mitigate destruction from hurricanes. Interested donors could help support the transfer of expertise from one region to another before the next disaster occurs.
Be willing to consider long-term, multi-year commitments. Remember that New Orleans still hasn’t fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and New York still hasn’t fully rebuilt from damage sustained on Sept. 11, 2001.
Remember that Sandy’s effects were felt well beyond U.S. borders. Still crippled by the 2010 earthquake and affected by Hurricane Isaac just a few months ago, Haiti saw 52 deaths related to Sandy and now faces a potential cholera epidemic and food shortages.
Connect with other funders across the affected region and the nation. Collaborative philanthropic response to the disaster leverages combined expertise and maximizes the value of the human, financial, and technical resources donated. Use the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, your regional association, or other networks to plan and leverage your support.
It’s heart wrenching to see images of a disaster aftermath on TV, like the one we’re still watching in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It’s even more heartbreaking when it happens in your neighborhood. What are the best and most effective ways for a grantmaker to help?
3. Use the Council on Foundations’ Community Foundation Locator to find community foundations in affected areas to which you can send aid. Search by region, state or zip code.
5. Participate in grantmaker conference calls: Philanthropy New York and Council of New Jersey Grantmakers are holding meetings and conference calls for foundations to share information about relief efforts:
Philanthropy New York is organizing a meeting of foundations and nonprofits building Hurricane Sandy Recovery Funds in order to begin greater coordination among Sandy funds making grants to other organizations. The meeting is taking place Monday, November 19 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. EST., at Philanthropy New York. For more information, please email mremaley@philanthropynewyork.org
Council of NJ Grantmakers is hosting weekly conference calls on Mondays at 4:00 pm for grantmakers to discuss their response and strategies to address the many issues facing our New Jersey as a result of the storm. Please email Alyssa Gillon at agillon@cnjg.org to participate.
6. Check out the Council on Foundations Disaster Grantmaking center online, which offers updates, resource, and legal information on providing relief in times of disaster, outlining the basic legal considerations of a variety of popular giving options for managers of public and private foundations and corporate giving programs.
Tomorrow’s blog will provide tips for providing longer term support following Hurricane Sandy and other disasters.
This week I had the opportunity talk to some high school students about building their brand (What’s up Cookie Cart kids!) and one of them asked me afterwards “what is an informational interview?”. That is a great question and one that many adults are often too embarrassed to ask. So I’ll pretend that I’m answering the question for the high schoolers and mid-career professionals can pretend like they are reading this post to brush up on something that they already know everything about and are doing consistently to advance in their career. Deal?
So what is an informational interview?
An informational interview is not a job interview. It is an interview to learn more about a job, career, industry or company.
Who should I ask for an informational interview?
People that you admire, someone who has a job that you would like in 5-10 years, or someone that works at a company that you would like to work at. You can find these people in industry blogs or newspapers, through alumni associations, or through referrals from people in your network.
Can you give me an example email to request an informational interview?
For students:
Brad Owens, from Humphrey Institute Career Services suggested that I contact you. As a graduate student studying nonprofit management I would like to learn more about my various career options after I graduate, he thought you might be able to provide me with useful information. If you are able to find time, I would like to meet with you in person or by phone for 20 minutes to ask you a few questions about your career path.
Thank you for considering my request. I look forward to your reply.
For people that are employed:
Amy Johnson, Executive Director of the Helping People Center shared your contact information with me. She is a big fan of yours and highly recommended that I reach out to you. I am currently a development officer at the Evergreen Health Society and am confidentially considering a move to the foundation field. Because you successfully transitioned from fundraising to a program officer position, I would like to talk with you about your transition and if you have any specific advice about how I can better prepare myself for a job as a program officer. If you are able to find time, I would like to meet with you in person or by phone .
Thank you for considering my request. I look forward to your reply.
What should I ask in my informational interview?
Can you tell me about your career path?
What does your average day look like?
What degrees are needed in this field?
What do you think best prepared you for this position?
What do you like most about your job?
What is your least favorite part of the job?
What are the next steps for you in your career?
Are there people that you would recommend that I talk to to learn more?
Who do you admire in this field?
What sort of follow-up should I do?
Write a thank you note (handwritten is best) and if you get a job in the field at a later date, write them again to thank them for their great advice that helped you to break into the field.
This is a guest post by Galen Ellis, MPH, principal of El-Askari Consulting. It was originally posted on her blog.
Following are key principles to keep in mind when building diverse coalitions:
Excerpted from a blog my colleague, Laurin Mayeno, and I recently published on Laurin’s website
1. Be clear about what you hope to achieve by engaging diverse stakeholders.
Some of the reasons for including diverse communities may be to:
· Gain support and increase the impact and reach of the coalition
· Learn from diverse perspectives on the issues the coalition is set up to address
· Strengthen the voices of diverse communities in the community or policy change
· Build mutually beneficial relationships that can be sustained over time
· Strengthen leadership within the coalition so that it is more reflective of/responsive to diverse communities
It is useful to distinguish between the short-term goals of the coalition and long-term movement building goals. Long-term, the coalition may be interested in building a sustainable base of community power so that policies and decisions are community-responsive. Short-term, there may be a focus on a particular campaign or issue that requires involvement of as many communities as possible in order to achieve a “win”.
2. Invest in building relationships and trust. Recognize that long-term relationship building may be ultimately more important than the short-term goals of the coalition. Without building trust and shared ownership, community groups may feel used by the coalition to gain legitimacy or connections. Invest the time to talk with the groups you want to engage, understand them and learn about what they are committed to. Understand their strengths and what they bring to the community with their work. Explore how the coalition priorities intersect with their interests. Find out the best ways to engage them. For those who are already working together in coalition, there may be opportunities to strengthen relationships based on common interests, authentic communication and mutual support. Be intentional about this relationship building rather than focusing solely on the immediate task at hand.
3. Recognize and work with different agendas and interests. Part of authenticity in partnerships is being transparent about interests. Usually, the organizations involved at a core level of a coalition have chosen to be involved because it helps them further their own goals. They may already be working on the issue and find added value in coming together with others. It is important for the core groups in the organization to be honest about their interests and how much they are willing to share power, resources and control.
The coalition agenda may or may not be a priority for the organizations you seek to engage. In other words, they may or may not have a stake in what the coalition is doing. Smaller organizations may be supportive of the coalition, but have other priorities, such as building their basic infrastructure and constituency. Recognize where the interests coalesce and where there is a common agenda. Recognize also the different agendas that drive participation/non-participation in the coalition.
4. Explore different strategies for engaging communities. There are different ways to engage people and membership in the coalition may not be the best approach. Explore ways to involve people, depending upon your goals. Some coalitions have different levels of membership or ways to participate without becoming a full member. If your goal is to be more informed by different perspectives, consider engaging people who don’t have time to come to regular meetings as advisors. Key informant interviews could be a way to elicit their input. If your goal is to build community leadership, consider a community organizing approach. You may also want to consider a hybrid between coalition building and community organizing.
5. Build an inclusive coalition culture. As you’re working towards bringing new leadership into the coalition, recognize that capacity building may be in order for the existing leadership. The coalition may have developed a culture or way of doing things that is not welcoming or inclusive to people from different backgrounds or with different languages. Get past the habitual ways that the dominant culture runs meetings and normalize diversity in how meetings are run. The best way to determine what would work is by learning from the communities you wish to engage. Consider the way the agenda is structured, as well as the timing and location of meetings. Training in cultural humility and/or multicultural communication may help participants understand their own cultural lens for viewing the work and be able to listen and engage with people with different perspectives and experiences.
5. Acknowledge and address differences in power and resources. Effective work across difference requires acknowledging and addressing power dynamics and differences in resources. The more “mainstream” organizations with more resources may dominate the process by default because they are the ones with staff time and resources to contribute. There may also be an insider/outsider dynamic if there are groups that have a long history of working together and new groups that don’t share that history. Sometimes the actual substantive discussions happen informally, outside of meetings and the result is disenfranchisement of the newcomers. Groups who are used to calling the shots and doing most of the work may be reluctant to share power or resources with others.
Smaller, less resourced groups are not without power. For example, organizations based in particular communities may have the power to legitimize the coalition or leverage relationships to a particular base of people. They may also hold the power to hold up the process, by being absent when key decisions are made.
Building trust, and being explicit about how decisions will be made and how resources will be used can be one way to address these dynamics. There may also be an option of allocating some resources to “level the playing field” such as supporting smaller organizations to build their infrastructures or providing them with funding and technical assistance to support their participation. Local and national coalitions and initiatives have used this strategy successfully, particularly when there are grant funds available to support coalition work.
In conclusion, effective coalition building is strongly rooted in an understanding of and sensitivity to the dynamics of power, as well as the practice of cultural humility. We offer these insights and tips with the full recognition that building collaborative partnerships that truly honor diversity can be both challenging and rewarding. It calls organizations and individual staff to reflect honestly and communicate authentically about interests and commitments, culture and difference. These discussions are essential to building effective coalitions, powerful partnerships and responsive and inclusive policies and systems.
Here are a few resources on coalition building that you might find helpful:
How one foundation used research to help support young, black men
In the wake of substantial public funding cuts across the board, many foundations are struggling to find the most meaningful ways to step up and strategically fill the void. Let’s not kid ourselves: there is no way for private philanthropy to close that public funding gap. The struggle for foundations, then, is how to achieve the most impact for the investments they can make, and choosing meaningful areas in which to invest.
In that regard, it pays to do your homework by conducting a little research to find the intersections between public cuts and public needs. For example, take a look at the new BLOOM Initiative launched earlier this year by the California Community Foundation, with funding support from Weingart Foundation, The Carl and Roberta Deutsch Foundation, Union Bank Foundation, and many others.
The initiative targets Black male youth who have had a brush with the law and ended up in Los Angeles County’s probation system. Through a series of community supports, BLOOM (Building a Lifetime of Options and Opportunities for Black Men) aims to steer Black male teens away from the path of incarceration and toward a path of education and employment. According to the California Community Foundation, a mere 10% decrease in the number of Black male youth in the county probation system over the next five years will save taxpayers about $48.8 million annually.
That’s a huge impact for hundreds of Black male youth and for the county’s public funding budget — but the Community Foundation did not set out with this particular impact in mind. Instead, they started by doing their homework.
At the beginning of 2011, the California Community Foundation contracted with our consulting firm, Putnam Community Investment Consulting to perform a high-level analysis of California’s budget as it related to Black men and boys in Los Angeles County. We specifically looked at the areas of education, economic opportunity, youth involved in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. Where were the cuts? What populations and programs would be affected most? Which were least likely to have other sources of support?
In our research, we found that “realignment” of the state’s department of juvenile justice would place the burden for serving juvenile offenders completely on counties. The impact on Los Angeles County, where Black youth account for 10 percent of the county youth population but 33 percent of all youth under probation supervision, was especially significant. So significant, in fact, that the California Community Foundation ended up investing $2.5 million in the BLOOM initiative over five years. The Foundation is actively seeking a 1:1 match from external partners to bring BLOOM to scale at $1 million per year over the next five years.
Without conducting this research, the Community Foundation would not have realized the new juvenile justice need — and opportunity — that was emerging in Los Angeles County, and would not have been able to weigh it against the many other needs in education and workforce development that were also of interest to them.
This week I had the opportunity talk to some high school students about building their brand (What’s up 
