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Liberty Hill is pleased to announce that our 2018 Fund for Change grants will invest $975,800 in 39 grassroots organizations throughout Los Angeles County. Thanks to the generosity of our donor-activists and foundation partners, we have been able to increase our Fund for Change grantmaking by $256,800 since 2016.

For more than 40 years, Liberty Hill has invested in activism in L.A. Our investments help build the power of grassroots community organizing groups to win significant social change.

Narratives, if framed the right way, can be used to spark change, shift difficult conversations, and create a better understanding of complex issues. Read on to learn about the recent CAA Foundation roundtable discussion on storytelling and narrative change around LA’s housing crisis featuring executive producer Gina Welch, Mayor Karen Bass and Liberty Hill President & CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith!

Liberty Hill is proud to announce a $2 million commitment to the Liberation Fund, aimed at ending the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth in Los Angeles County.

In partnership with First 5 LA, and with contributions from our donor-activists, Liberty Hill has established a Rapid Response for Young Immigrant Children Fund.

Liberty Hill will be closed for Summer Break between Monday, July 1st and Friday, July 5th. We recognize the hard work and dedication of our dedicated Liberty Hill team and believe that offering a Summer Break will promote employee well-being, work-life balance, creativity, and productivity.

At the recent X Fund Reception, members and grantees came together to celebrate their shared commitment to supporting women, girls, and gender expansive individuals to reach their full potential, strive for economic justice, and live free of discrimination and violence. Read on to learn more about the annual gathering and see event highlights!

This Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we’re highlighting the significant impact of Liberty Hill’s Circle of Change giving circle and their support of frontline AANHPI nonprofit organizations and projects that make transformative, positive social change within the AANHPI communities in Southern California. Read on to learn more about Circle of Change and its positive impact on AANHPI communities throughout the region.

At our recent Liberation Fund Funder Briefing, Liberty Hill invited individual donors, funders, and advisors to learn about the progress of our Liberation Fund and the potential pathway the initiative is creating for LA County to become the largest jurisdiction in the nation to end the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth. Read on to learn more and watch the full recording.

This emergency fund is designed to support immediate community organizing needs on the frontlines and fuel emergency advocacy efforts in Los Angeles County to protect the most vulnerable during this time of unimaginable upheaval due to the COVID-19 crisis.

We invited youth from Arts for Healing and Justice Network, Anti Recidivism Coalition, Youth Mentoring Connection, Amazing Grace Conservatory, and Share Fest to tell us what justice for all means to them. Their voices remind us why we’re in this fight and continue to leave us inspired. Watch this video mosaic to hear their visions for a just future.

The 2020 election was generation-defining in many respects—from the record-breaking turnout to the critical social justice issues on the ballot for millions of Americans—a coalition of diverse voters, led by Black and Brown organizers, showed up to flex their electoral power in major ways this year.

Liberty Hill is committed to ensuring we continue to use our financial resources to support Black-led organizing and the activists on the frontlines. We are committed to using our voice to promote anti-racist policies and amplify the voices of those screaming for justice.

Liberty Hill is proud to announce a historic $3.34 million investment in the local grassroots and community organizing ecosystem and its leaders of color in L.A.

If someone offered you $100,000 and two years to think deeply about how to solve a big problem, what problem would you tackle? As a recipient of the 2018 Stanton Fellowship, I have just that opportunity.

Right now, community organizers on the frontlines need immediate support. I hope you will consider making a contribution to our COVID 19 Rapid Response Fund for Community Organizing to support the immediate needs of organizers and community members on the frontlines of this crisis.

Liberty Hill is excited to announce our grantee partners for the Liberation Fund– a groundbreaking initiative to end the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth in Los Angeles County!

This past January, Liberty Hill announced its solicitation for applications for the new Liberation Fund Planning Grants—a new initiative that aims to end the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth in the Los Angeles County criminal legal system and build liberatory pathways for these young people.

While we continue to support the push to make this recent national reckoning on racial justice more than just a moment in the crucial fight for Black Lives, our partners are also continuing the fight to ensure this movement makes lasting change in our society and in the lives of Black people in our country.

Liberty Hill Foundation (Liberty Hill) and California Community Foundation (CCF) have launched a Public/Private Partnership (P/PP) with the Los Angeles County Probation Department. This collaboration will expand opportunities and resources for programs that keep vulnerable youth out of the criminal justice system and help those in the system transition back into the community.

Liberty Hill’s OUT Fund giving circle recently hosted a special Pride Month outing and pre-show reception for a performance of the award-winning Broadway musical, A Strange Loop. Read on to learn more about the event and the Out Fund’s mission to support LGBTQ+ Justice organizations and projects across L.A.

March is Women’s History Month and Liberty Hill invites you to join us as we recognize the leadership, resilience and courage of women who have fought tirelessly to advance social justice—including members of Liberty Hill’s very own The X Fund Giving Circle which celebrates 10 years of activism this year! Read on to learn more about the group’s milestone in the fight for Gender Justice.

Through a global pandemic that threatened both lives and livelihoods, and a national uprising for racial justice that challenged and ultimately changed hearts, minds, and laws—the fight for social justice has continued.

Although California is the fifth-largest economy in the world, our state ranks a whopping 44th in the United States in per-pupil funding for education. We can do better—for our kids and our communities.

The Liberty Hill community joined Liberation Fund community partners from across Los Angeles at the recent Liberation Fund Prom, celebrating the collaborative’s work to end the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth in LA County. Read on to learn more about the inaugural event and catch all the highlights from the big night!

Last month, Liberty Hill Housing Justice partners Community Power Collective rallied at the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to advocate for rent debt relief. The collective urged elected officials to take action to Keep LA Housed and cancel COVID-19 rent debt before the February 1st deadline—a move that could potentially save thousands of LA families from eviction and displacement.

Queer and gender non-conforming youth face alarming rates of bullying, loneliness, and isolation putting them at increased risk for depression and other mental health conditions. Local LGBTQ-led nonprofit, Rainbow Labs, is working to change that.

Recently, Liberty Hill joined members of the Right to Counsel - LA and Keep LA Housed Coalition, along with local tenants and housing advocates, on the steps of City Hall to rally around the announcement of a new “Right to Counsel” motion that would ensure free legal representation for low-income tenants threatened with eviction.

This was truly a banner year for activism and progress! We have much work to do on the road ahead, but we couldn’t be prouder to take this journey with you—our Beloved Community.

To date, the Dodgers Foundation and Kershaw's Challenge have raised more than $415,000 for this critical work. This marks a bold step forward and a significant investment in our work in Los Angeles.

We are excited to announce the launch of our “Justice for All” public awareness campaign designed to raise awareness and funds to support local grassroots activism and organizing led by those most impacted by systemic oppression.

The painful irony of work under COVID-19 is this—the workers most essential to the health and well-being of our families and communities are those too often denied the power to protect the health and well-being of themselves, their families and their communities.

This summer also saw some major developments in the fight to end youth incarceration as we know it, as well as the continued work to ensure tenants know their rights and people stay housed amidst the homelessness crisis.

Black-led organizing is a powerful driver of social change in Los Angeles. Since its founding, Liberty Hill Foundation has directly invested in Black-led organizing to build power in communities most impacted by systemic oppression to achieve equity and justice.

We are excited to launch a virtual version of our 2022 Emerging Leaders Commissions Training Program this year in partnership with the office of L.A. County Board of Supervisors Chair Holly J. Mitchell. The Wally Marks Leadership Institute Commissions Training Program for Emerging Leaders will seek to create better transparency and knowledge about boards and commissions service by providing training and support for candidates with commitments to equity and social justice.

In the New Year, Liberty Hill will be offering a series of educational sessions to help supporters better understand your options around planned giving and designing your philanthropic legacy.  Save the Date for a special conversation about Planned Giving with Jane Peebles, Estate Planning Attorney of Karlin & Peebles, LLP, on Friday, January 28th. More info to come in the new year!

One of the core aspects of our Agenda for a Just Future is our commitment to fighting for a roof over every head. As part of that housing justice work, we have also supported organizations working to ensure fair treatment of tenants who face the risk of eviction during these uncertain times.

As the global pandemic reshapes how we all live, youth organizers continue the fight for justice, especially after two youths in Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls tested positive for coronavirus this week.

When Liberty Hill started deciding where to concentrate our efforts for the next three years, there were many factors to consider—the new administration in Washington; California’s role on the national stage; L.A.’s rapidly changing urban landscape and the challenges and opportunities that come with it.

Watch the world premiere of our “On the Road to Change” short film, detailing the extraordinary journey of L.A. organizers in the fight for social change and the progress we’ve made together to ensure a just future for all.

In February 2018, Liberty Hill partnered with the Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) Network of Southern California—one of our grantees fighting to empower and train young LGBTQ leaders—to call on Los Angeles County elected officials to address issues of disproportionate criminalization and abusive treatment of LGBTQ youth of color.

This past month, Liberty Hill’s Senior Director of Environmental & Climate Justice Angelo Logan— who is also a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council—joined a special event at The White House to witness President Biden’s signing of an Environmental Justice Executive Order which will expand the administration’s climate and environmental justice efforts nationwide.

Advocacy groups that provide educational and legal support to renters across the county have seen an uptick in tenant harassment complaints, such as landlords conducting construction at all hours of the night or refusing to turn on the water or address roach infestations. Reports of harassment like this have almost doubled in the last few months via the Stay Housed L.A. program.

Employee Giving Programs are a great way to help fuel progress in Los Angeles through Liberty Hill. We were grateful to local company PDG Consulting for selecting Liberty Hill for their Employee Matching Gift program for Giving Tuesday!

Attention Liberty Hill Community, this year Liberty Hill’s Virtual Offices will be closed for a Summer Break between Monday, July 3rd and Friday, July 7th. We recognize the hard work and dedication of our dedicated Liberty Hill team and believe that offering a summer break will promote employee well-being, work-life balance, creativity, and productivity.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to drastically expand the ranks of Los Angeles’s unhoused population and worsen the region’s long-standing eviction crisis.

In a tremendous win for our environmental justice agenda, officials recently announced the permanent closure of the Jefferson oil drilling site in South L.A.!

This past year’s election produced an historic crop of victories. The Los Angeles political landscape has seen changes big and small that will shape policy for years to come.

We’re so excited to share a new bonus episode of Season 1 of Conversation from the Frontlines: Real Talk, Real Change! In this episode, Mayor Karen Bass joins the Liberty Hill community on the eve of her inauguration to discuss her plans to address pressing issues facing the City of L.A.

Exciting environmental news from one of Liberty Hill’s long fought, diligently worked campaigns. On Thursday, June 22 the policy known as Clean Up Green Up was honored with the American Planning Association (APA LA) award for Excellence in Innovation in Green Community Planning at the 2017 L.A. Awards.

The Stay Housed L.A. program was featured by the White House as a national model for eviction prevention. Check out our Executive Vice President Jenny Delwood as she shares lessons learned and best practices from Stay Housed L.A.

We were excited to recently host a lively discussion called Divest, Defund, Reform, Abolish? Next Steps for Justice and Policing After the 2020 Protests. This virtual event was an important discussion on the movements to reduce reliance on policing, along with the necessary steps to ensure the safety and future of our youth and communities.

With June being Pride Month, it's the perfect time to shine a light on the progressive work being birthed out of a continued fight for equity and liberation in this space.

A new multi-year, multi-sector initiative called Bold Vision is launching in Los Angeles County to address racial and social inequities in our public systems and create a more equitable Los Angeles for youth of color.

Exclusive game-worn jerseys from your favorite Los Angeles Chargers players are now available for auction at chrg.rs/equality.

Victory! We are on our way to Ending Youth Incarceration As We Know It! On Tuesday, November 24, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to dismantle the largest youth justice system in the nation in favor of a care-first model that would emphasize emotional support, counseling, and treatment.

Mainor is a Youth Policy Advocate working to keep Brown and Black youth out of the system at The Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network (AIYN). After navigating his youth without proper guidance or mentorship, he found himself in jail as a teenager.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and a longstanding housing crisis, families are fighting for their right to a safe place to live.

The worlds of art, social justice, and youth activism have long worked together to drive social change within the community. Engaging youth in the arts can promote powerful change in countless ways, improving creativity and social skills, enhancing critical thinking, building confidence, and creating deep cultural and personal connections.

The Fund for Change program funds 501(c)(3) organizations and provides general operating support grants for community organizing in Los Angeles County.

Investing in community-led solutions to end system involvement for girls & gender expansive youth.

A private Giving Circle established by a group of families in 2000, the Pobladores Fund invests in organizations that are working throughout the diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles to advocate for social and economic justice, promote human rights and mitigate the impacts of environmental degradation.

When we launched the B.L.A.C.C. Fund, we understood that it would be difficult for our donor base (young, Black professionals) to simply write a check for or even make pledges of $10,000 or $20,000. Our goal was to help them see what was possible by pooling our resources in the community with others. We reinforced a narrative that you don’t have to be a millionaire to be a philanthropist by setting a giving level small enough to be accessible to everyone, including children.

The Leadership Institute's workshops, technical training and coaching are designed to strengthen organizational infrastructure and the leadership base of grantee partners.

Committed to bringing about lasting social change, X Fund is a women's Giving Circle that makes annual grants to non-profit organizations that enable women and girls to reach their potential, strive for economic justice and live free of discrimination and violence.

B.L.A.C.C. Fund seeks to harness the collective giving power of professionals to support organizations working on the front lines of social justice in Los Angeles. Grants are awarded to organizations empowering the African American community in the areas of education, jobs and leadership development.

The Liberty Hill Foundation is proud to announce a $2 million commitment to the Liberation Fund, aimed at ending the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth in Los Angeles County. This investment will support 12 BIPOC-led organizations and provide crucial infrastructure support to the community backbone team leading this groundbreaking, multi-year initiative. The work in Los Angeles County is laying the foundation to create a model for ending the incarceration of girls and gender-expansive youth across California, with the potential to be replicated nationwide.

Our Mission is to use art to foster love, hope and healing. To support artists from underrepresented communities, leverage storytelling for enduring impact, bring diverse communities together and build opportunities that focus on equity and positive change.

The fight for social justice is a marathon, not a sprint. No one knows that better than our grassroots partners and the community leaders who are leading the fights for change every day. In communities across LA, they have been hard at work—taking to the streets, to the courts, and to the ballot box—to make their collective voices heard.

With the pandemic continuing to upend our norms in 2021, Liberty Hill and our partners began our journey on the road to what we call a “just reconstruction.” Our partners stepped up to the plate and kept their feet on the gas as we powered forward to victory in several critical areas.

Liberty Hill was founded on the principle that we cannot wait for change to come to us. We support a transformational movement for racial justice that seeks to dismantle systemic racism and traditional systems of harm in America. To strengthen that movement, racial justice has always been embedded into the core principles of all of our work.

Liberty Hill is an accelerator of community organizing in Los Angeles and a national leader in social justice.

The theme of this year’s book is All Roads Lead to Change, because I truly believe that together we can achieve more than we imagined and go further than we’ve dreamed. By centering people with lived experience, investing in the frontline organizing, and continuing to ensure our victories are implemented and funded, we can realize the future we seek—together.

If you are interested in making a contribution in Michele’s honor, please direct your donations to the EJ Rapid Respond Fund. These donations will provide flexible funding that allows us to respond to the urgent needs of our grantees as they arise.

Liberty Hill is an accelerator of community organizing in Los Angeles and a national leader in social justice.

Established by two generous donors, this program provides six or more young people (ages 18-25) with a stipend of at least $6,500 each, while they work at a nonprofit organization in Southern California.

The Angelenos for L.A. Giving Circle is a member driven group that awards grants to organizations effecting real change in Los Angeles. Specifically, their mission is to create and support positive social change in the Black community of greater Los Angeles.

Join us for a fun evening of tasty drinks and lively conversations with other socially conscious L.A. movers and shakers at Liberty Hill’s Donor Advised Fund Happy Hour!

The Agenda for a Just Future is a five-year campaign that seeks to tackle three of our region's most pressing social issues—youth incarceration, the housing crisis and toxic neighborhood oil drilling—through a lens of racial and social justice.

To bring an end to youth incarceration of girls and gender expansive youth (GGE) in L.A. County, Liberty Hill Foundation has created the Liberation Fund to direct resources toward grassroots initiatives with the experience and knowledge to provide the vital support that actually works.

This year, Liberty Hill and our community partners achieved groundbreaking wins for youth and transformative justice. Dedicated activists, organizers, and young people on the frontlines of youth justice paved the road to these victories with determination, resiliency, and passion.

What if youth prisons that have been deemed unsuitable for the care of young people when held to even the minimum standards, were instead replaced with youth centers, where youth had access to care, safety, resources, and opportunities? This was a question at the heart of the foundation of the Liberation Fund, a beacon of hope and advocacy, to respond to these appalling injustices and unlock new strategies that have never been tried before.

Thanks to the collective work of our partners from Unión de Vecinas, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ), and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ)—who came together from across their various movements—the Bell Gardens City Council unanimously passed a rent stabilization ordinance that limited annual rent increases to once a year with a 4% ceiling.

We are proud to be a part of the California Funders for Boys and Men of Color (CFBMoC), a statewide network of leading foundations that are aligning their efforts and resources to improve life outcomes for boys and men of color through systems change.

The Affordable Housing, Homelessness Solution & Prevention Now initiative—now known as Measure A—secured the required 238,922 valid signatures to make it on the 2024 November ballot. Read on to learn more about the innovative measure created by housing experts and community leaders to address the urgency of housing affordability, renter protections, and mental health in Los Angeles County.

Black-led organizing is a powerful driver of social change in Los Angeles. Since its founding, Liberty Hill Foundation has invested in Black-led organizing to build power in communities most impacted by systemic oppression to achieve equity and justice.

1/31/2024 — (Los Angeles) — Liberty Hill Foundation is proud to announce the inaugural cohort of its new Environmental Leadership Initiative (ELI), a groundbreaking fellowship program that seeks to advance the movement for environmental justice by investing in the development and empowerment of emerging leaders from communities across California.

10/18/2023 — (Los Angeles)—Liberty Hill Foundation is proud to announce the community partners for The Liberation Fund, a new groundbreaking initiative that invests in community-led solutions to end system involvement of girls and gender-expansive youth in Los Angeles County.

6/6/2024 — (Los Angeles) — Dozens of young women and gender-expansive youth from across Los Angeles danced and celebrated at the LINE LA hotel on Friday night at Liberty Hill’s Inaugural “Liberation Fund Prom.”

07/29/2021 — Our “Justice for All” Campaign seeks to raise awareness of the critical issues facing Los Angeles as we deal with the effects of a global pandemic and existing systemic problems facing our region. The “Justice for All” campaign will highlight the grassroots activism and on-the-ground successes of Liberty Hill’s partners, while expanding knowledge of the Foundation’s efforts to power these movements and amplify their work for greater impact.

Special thanks to our dynamic speakers who set the tone for the evening and reminded everyone of the critical nature of the work to free girls and GE youth from ineffective and damaging systems—Lateefah Simon, President of the Meadow Fund, Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez of District 1, Nichol Whiteman, of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, and Lisa Small, Senior Director of Youth Justice at Liberty Hill Foundation.

Our guest speakers—including Dani Kim (Co-Founder, Organizing Roots), Tia Martinez (Managing Director, Organizing Roots), Ka’Lee Matthews (Liberation Fund Fellow, Young Women’s Freedom Center), Jessica Nowlan (President, Reimagine Freedom), and Abigail Richards (Co-Executive Director, Young Women’s Freedom Center)—shared profound data, lived experiences, and solutions that inextricably connect housing, economic instability, and gender violence to juvenile justice outcomes.

Billboard Magazine Executive Editor and former Liberty Hill Board Member, Melinda Newman, hosted a wonderfully candid conversation with legendary Doors musician John Densmore about his career and the ways music has played a role in fueling social justice.

For the final event in the inaugural Climate Equity LA Series, we are honored to feature a panel with Assemblymember Isaac G. Bryan, City of LA Civil + Human Rights & Equity Department Executive Director & General Manager Capri Maddox, Esq., and CEMO Director Marta A. Segura, moderated by City of LA Board of Public Works President Pro Tempore, Dr. Mike Davis, as well as a discussion with Policy Director for Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE), Agustin Cabrera, and Campaign Director for the RePower LA coalition, Estuardo Mazariegos.

Join the Black-led giving circles of the Liberty Hill Foundation as we come together to celebrate all the ways we, as Black philanthropists, show up for our communities~and how you can too!

CEMO wishes to thank the Liberty Hill Foundation, the CEMC Commissioners, and the CELA Design Committee for their contributions and insights in the development of Part I of the Climate Equity LA Series.

A conversation with frontline organizers on the dangers of exposure to environmental hazards and how they are severe for disadvantaged communities of color that live near warehouses, railyards and freeways.

Join us to hear more about the ground-breaking Stay Housed L.A. program and learn more about the innovative efforts to prevent homelessness and address tenant needs throughout Los Angeles County

We’ll show you how to identify the key indicators of nonprofit financial health and the other vital information to be found in the Form 990.

In partnership with Kim Tso of Velocity Ink, LLC, this workshop will serve as an introduction to grantwriting to strengthen the capacities of emerging nonprofits seeking to raise funds for community work. While this workshop is intended for small and emerging non-profit organizations, all are welcome.

Investing in community-led solutions to end system involvement for girls & gender expansive youth.

Brothers, Sons, Selves: Young Men in Los Angeles Are Ready for Change (2012) offers testimony from African American, Latino and Asian American/Pacific Islander boys and young men in L.A. County and discusses how and why these youth face a health crisis that jeopardizes the future prosperity of all Californians.

Hidden Hazards: A Call to Action for Healthy Livable Communities (2011) provides new evidence of the high density of air pollution hazards and exposure in certain areas of Los Angeles – hazards that are “hidden” from the view of regulatory agencies because they are not contained in their official databases.

This study of African American philanthropy in Los Angeles represents just the beginning of intensifying interest within the African American community about our philanthropic assets and power, and how to deploy them.

This UCLA Community Scholars 2014 Report provides 19 different strategies for EJ communities to advance environmental and economic sustainability through a pilot "Green Zone" model which utilizes innovative land usage to improve the vitality of local toxic hot spots.

The purpose of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation report is to provide an evaluation of the first year of the campaign, including its equity implications, the effectiveness of its outreach and areas for growth.

Advantaging Communities recommends policies to advance equitable development in environmental justice communities through the unprecedented investment potential of California's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF).