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In Los Angeles, systems change starts locally
Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States, and LA County comprises 88 cities. Divide that into the number of neighborhoods with different needs, and you have a very varied community to serve. Despite these complexities, one issue that the most under-resourced people share in LA County is the lack of parks and opportunities for sport and play; plus recess isn’t mandated in the vast majority of schools.
So, in a place with an unmatched number of professional sports teams — the Dodgers, the Angels, the Kings, the Clippers; the list goes on — a huge number of young people, from largely Latino and Black communities, are without access to sports and the benefits it brings: health, team building, coaching, purpose, achievement, new experiences, and (for parents) child care. This is proven to impact girls in the area the most: according to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation, young women have the highest dropout rate from sports, as many families can’t afford to send multiple children to programs and often rely on young women to act as essential caregiving support.
In response to this issue, the LA84 Foundation, formed in the wake of the 1984 Olympics in LA, created the Play Equity Fund (PEF) to “level the playing field” for access to sports, and establish the only nonprofit focused solely on “play equity” as a social justice issue. The team running the fund is unique in their approach: funding community, grassroots organizations that many philanthropies would not usually take a chance on. “We act as a convener and capacity builder, sharing research, convening, helping close gaps for grassroots organizations, and using our network insights and reach to change policies and systems,” says Play Equity Fund President, Renata Simril.
“The work we do for systems change — that’s not going to happen with one investment in one year. Come to us and put money in for five years and we’ll track the impact. If you want to have long-term impact and lift up BIPOC organizations, look at these changemaker intermediaries.”
Put grassroots first
PEF has helped drive key data to prove the impact of physical activity on mental wellness and the ability for communities to thrive. “We did a three-year longitudinal study that shows how sports participation encourages kids to stay in school longer, and also accelerates their English language skills when they engage in sports. But the data also showed that the gap had grown wider for most low-income kids’ ability to access sports,” said Simril. To reach the most kids, PEF has focused on supporting after-school programs that work with some of the six million kids in the California public school system.
PEF started with a coalition of grantees across Southern CA — listening and learning about what they needed to survive and flourish. “It was clear what was needed was capacity building to graduate from being small mom-and-pop organizations to stronger nonprofits,” said Simril.
Youth ‘N Motion in Leimert Park, CA is a great example of this nurturing approach. Through martial arts, the nonprofit was originally helping 25 young Black men who came from low-income neighborhoods and were at risk of becoming part of the youth incarceration system. “Our first grant to them was around $5,000,” said Simril. “Most funders won’t make grants that small to organizations of their size. We wanted to take a risk on this underdog. Eight years later, Youth ‘N Motion just received a $150k grant from a larger philanthropy, helping them expand to archery, and dance; and they serve hundreds of kids.”
Simril explains their flexibility in building capacity. “We bring the infrastructure they need to raise awareness but don’t know how to speak to the press, surface expert trends on mental wellness — whatever they need, we offer, to help them build capacity to serve more kids.”
Fernando Ramirez, Chief Policy and Public Affairs Officer at LA84 Foundation/Play Equity Fund explained the unique mindset: “I see it as ‘we work for these organizations.’ In each of those categories we have added resources or supported policy changes that unlock resources, space, and coaches.”
“Win, lose, try again”
Lindsay "Abdul Latif" Ferguson grew up in South Central LA. “Being a low-income area, there were gangs and things like that [while I was living and playing in the area]. When I first started martial arts it was basically to be able to defend myself,” he says. The more he practiced, the better he got, and he quickly became a national champion, traveling to Thailand to represent the U.S. “And this year I’m being inducted into the Hall of Fame!”
In 2005, Ferguson started a small nonprofit — Youth ‘N Motion Academy— to offer martial arts as an after-school program in his neighborhood; a chance to give back to the community and pass on the knowledge and value that he gained from his experience.
Ferguson is grateful to LA84/PEF for their unique role in supporting his organization in the early days. “They have been a huge benefit to us — Youth ‘N Motion Academy received its first grant from them. Their approach is very down to earth, very clear. With most nonprofit grants, you don’t get to meet the funder. With Renata and team, it's more hands-on, you can actually talk to them and resolve issues and go from there.”
Today, Ferguson is the Founder, President, and CEO of a growing organization that serves the Leimert Park area with karate and archery. “It’s majority African American, low-income kids. The biggest deterrent is kids don’t have access to sports and play, the ability to pay tuition, or to get to the classes. So we get funding to help pay for the kids’ tuition, tournament support, and equipment.”
Why does he do it? “The value is in their confidence level, their self-esteem, the overall fact of being able to compete, know what it is to win, lose, try again.”
Invest in trusted relationships
Renata Simril is a vocal advocate for larger or corporate philanthropies to trust intermediaries like PEF to help them work effectively deep within neighborhoods because those intermediaries can help bridge the gap between decision-makers and community voices. PEF now has reach into 50 organizations in Southern California — what they call their “Voices of Play Equity” — allowing funders to leverage their dollars to go deep in specific neighborhoods and impact hundreds or thousands of lives. Plus, those funds not only go directly to local programs; they also contribute to accelerating the community pressure that PEF harnesses to help inform local and state policy in favor of the communities they serve. For example, they recently worked to create the King County Play Equity Coalition which helped pass a recess bill in Seattle, and did the same in California, guaranteeing recess for elementary students.
“Funders need to open their dollars to intermediaries. We can help you go directly to an organization, or have a reach into the system of sport development. We can help you reach scale — reach hundreds of kids and those small BIPOC organizations at scale. And we will do the communications,” said Simril.
PEF put this intermediary role into action by partnering with Nike on a new initiative called ‘Made to Play’ in the Boyle Heights and Watts neighborhoods. The three-year, $1.3 million program aims to empower 13 community organizations to create equal access to play for Latina and Black girls.
“Nike asked to partner with us given our relationships on the ground and deep connections to this community – so we helped curate programs because of the trust we have here," said Simril. “Now we’re doing a second term with those organizations and creating a toolkit that can inform everyone involved in this type of work.”
Quote: Matt Geschke
The power of “opportunity influencers”
Derek Steele is the Executive Director of the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI), a nonprofit that “exists to improve the overall health, education and wellbeing of youth and community of color by empowering them to enact the change they want to see” through research, training and community mobilization, in LA County and beyond. He is also the chair of the Care First Community Investment Advisory Committee that PEF works closely with to unlock resources for the sports based youth development sector.
“Young people don’t have a choice what family or community they were born into. But everything that is in that built environment has everything to do with their life outcomes — their ability to be school-ready, to be housed, to get a job. The social-emotional aspect — the health dynamics, is a place built for walkability, is it built for play?” said Steele.
Like PEF, Steele’s organization is focused on disrupting the cycles of concentrated disadvantage by creating what he calls “intentional randomness.” He explained: “Everyone has something random that changed things for them — the random math teacher that saw something in them that no one else did; the mom that made sure they had to go to soccer practice that meant that they ended up going on a summer trip to Europe. It’s random to that person, but it's intentional for the person giving the care. It’s the intention of the heart. We create an atmosphere so those things can happen, like through our Scholars Program.”
“The problems in South LA are not the same in Lancaster County or Long Beach. You have to have place-based strategies that help to provide the opportunity for those communities to come together and ideate on what the future looks like. The tools might be the same but the solutions are different.”
Care First Community Investment
In 2020, LA County approved Measure J which dedicated at least ten percent of the County’s locally generated unrestricted funds to address racial injustice and over-incarceration of Black and Brown communities. The money is meant to fund community investments; every year, $100 million is distributed to community programs from a “care first” standpoint.
A ‘Care First Investment Advisory Committee’ was established to oversee equitable distribution of those resources — a body of 24 people from all walks of life, chaired by Derek Steele for the last two years.
“That looks like nearly 345 organizations getting funding to elevate the work that they’re doing,” said Steele. “Now they can scale the impact of care in our community.”
For Tranche 3 of the funding, PEF led a large-scale community-driven process to make the case for funding to play equity-driven organizations. “We ran a 6-8 month campaign with community-attended meetings throughout the county — every concept that was submitted was eligible. PEF put together a leading program and submitted a concept for sport play and movement as a prevention to the criminal justice system, and won those organizations $15 million dollars,” said Fernando Ramirez.
The concept submitted by PEF was a demonstration of how on-the-ground, place-based intermediaries can make a huge difference to communities, by embedding equity into the process of funding: “We deconstructed the application process — we helped them apply for the money, guided them on what words to use,” said PEF leader Renata Simril.
In union county, collaboration is empowering communities to lead
Nestled in the heart of South Carolina’s Upstate region are Union County and Spartanburg, neighboring counties working side-by-side to redefine the region’s future. The region has faced major economic shifts, and now local leaders, businesses, and residents are coming together to drive new opportunities — investing in workforce development, expanding access to essential services, and fostering a renewed sense of place for those who call it home.
Spartanburg and Union County share a rich history, having once been a region with a thriving textile industry that declined between the 1970s-2000s. Dr. Joey Haney, Superintendent of Union County Schools, grew up in Union County and reflects on their closeness, “People that lived in Union [County] would work in Spartanburg or the other way around.” While the fluid movement across the county lines has strengthened neighborly ties, educational outcomes and access to economic opportunities are still largely determined by ZIP codes. Union County, the more rural of the two, has always relied on a network of volunteers and informal service organizations to meet the needs of families in crisis. However, without a formalized infrastructure, major philanthropic dollars that could support systems level change would not be able to reach the community.
Spartanburg offers broader access to essential services like hospitals, job opportunities, and housing, with a stronger job market and a wider range of affordable housing options. While Union County faces a higher poverty rate at 23.4% compared to Spartanburg’s 13.8%.
"Too often, decision-makers in corporate and philanthropic America invest in places where they have direct ties — where they live, work, or see customers. As a result, rural communities, which make up 14% of the U.S. population, are overlooked and underfunded. This underinvestment isn’t just financial — it extends to infrastructure as well... These foundational gaps limit everything from education and health to economic growth."
Bringing Back an Industry
When MycoWorks broke ground on the world’s first mycelium factory in Union County in 2022, there was a renewed excitement in the community for the potential of new jobs coming into town. The bio-tech company uses advanced manufacturing techniques to make eco-friendly, leather-like materials from mushrooms that are used across fashion, automotive, and interior design as a sustainable alternative to traditional leather.
Doug Hardesty, COO at MycoWorks, emphasized how the decision to build in Union County was led by the company’s intention to be an innovative continuation of the area's textile legacy, noting, “Union [County] was historically a mill town. As traditional textiles moved on, we’ve seen ourselves as the next extension of that — bringing a new way of developing textiles to South Carolina.” However, workers in Union County needed additional training to qualify for the new jobs, such as those brought by MycoWorks. Additionally, the region required a more robust infrastructure to expand the talent pool and attract new residents.
“We think about sustainability at MycoWorks in a few different ways — both in terms of the ability to participate in a circular economy, but also in terms of the workforce of future generations in Union County.”
Collaborating with the Community to Support Growth and Embrace Change
The BlackRock Foundation saw an opportunity to use philanthropy to help bridge the skills gap and support the infrastructure needed to begin to build a talent pipeline and create socioeconomic change in Union County. They turned to neighboring Spartanburg for inspiration.
Guided by discussions with Spartanburg Community College and The University of South Carolina-Union — two key academic institutions dedicated to developing local talent — and a select group of community leaders. The BlackRock Foundation learned about the organization leading Spartanburg's newly launched plans to tackle a similar challenge.
Daniel West, VP of Social Impact at BlackRock, contacted Dr. Russell Booker, CEO of Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM), after seeing their success in amplifying community voices and collaborating with stakeholders to improve outcomes for children and families in Spartanburg.
Inspired by SAM’s model of collective action, The BlackRock Foundation explored how they could foster a cradle-to-career approach in Union County, recognizing that workforce development extends beyond job training to include social determinants, like housing and healthcare. The BlackRock Foundation identified key stakeholders, like SAM, to facilitate the grant, and convene local organizations to develop a long-term plan for the community. These efforts and flexible grants would support building the infrastructure and capacity for the community to identify their funding needs.
Some of those grants supported leaders like Paige Stephenson, President & CEO of United Way of the Piedmont, in delivering comprehensive community services, from homelessness prevention to mental health and disaster response. Other grants funded cross-organizational coordination, ensuring alignment of efforts.
“This investment brought the community together, aligning resources on one vision and strengthening the pathway from education to employment. Not only did the BlackRock Foundation offer rapid resource grants, the flexible funding allowed us to put resources behind things that contribute to long-term outcomes.”
A Fresh Start
For Dennis Byrd, MycoWorks offered a fresh start after 20 years in the automotive industry, drawing him in with its innovative approach to “using mushrooms to create something.” Now a shift lead in inoculation, he values the slower, more intentional work at the factory. He was part of training Richard Makepeace who used to work at UPS before starting at MycoWorks, and is now thriving as a shift lead in fermentation. Both men see this place as more than a job — it’s a place of stability and an opportunity to be part of an innovative future. Dennis is hoping to move to North Union soon to be closer to his job, and envisions a future where his children can join the company.
Going further together
When The BlackRock Foundation first came to Union County, there were county leaders that supported the community's efforts to become a better place to live and work. However, without an organization to effectively take on large scale philanthropic investment, there were fundamental challenges in deploying the resources needed to build the talent pipeline.
Today, with the help of organizations, including SAM, Spartanburg County Foundation (SCF), and the United Way of Piedmont, and with funding from The BlackRock Foundation, Union County is able to take on more philanthropic funding, exchange learning among leaders, and give residents the opportunity to plan its future. SCF supports the newly funded Union County Foundation by providing back-office services and a venue for local Union County trustees to convene and make key funding decisions. Through funds from the BlackRock Foundation’s grant, the Union County Foundation was able to make its first set of community grants and start to map the nonprofit ecosystem in Union.
Despite a two-year investment window, The BlackRock Foundation’s place-based strategy allowed for outsized impact. West explained, “Given our position as national funders and the limitations around how long we stay in a place, we asked ourselves ‘how do we create depth of impact, while still maintaining a place-based mindset?’ The answer was, to be guided by the community, and investing in their capacity to propel themselves forward.” For leaders like Stephenson, this funding allowed her to put boots on the ground to gather community feedback. She shared, “We were able to hire someone specifically for Union County that was building those trusted relationships not just with institutions, but with grassroots leaders so that all voices could be represented in the planning process.”
“We all benefit when we're helping our neighbors, because it is not just about us; it’s about the region. I believe in order to be successful in our work, we have to convene. We have to be a knowledge source when applicable. This opportunity from The BlackRock Foundation allowed us to do just that.”
From internships to mindset shifts
MycoWorks was an early signal of civic and community investments. With a growing local economy, fundamental services, infrastructure, and amenities, such as hospital systems, housing, and even a Starbucks, came into the community to meet local needs. To ensure that Union County residents could participate in the boom, The BlackRock Foundation’s investment worked twofold; flexible funding opportunities supported building onramps to economic mobility that range from paid internships to local job fairs, while laying the groundwork for the community to have the tools and capacity to effectively implement its vision for the future. This two-pronged strategy allows leaders to move from a scarcity mindset to one that is long-term and strategic–an approach guided by their relationships with local leaders. The BlackRock Foundation is proud to be part of a broader movement of funders that are changing the landscape of philanthropy to be more community-centered and mindful of the past, present, and future of the places where they work.
“ We know that we are here for a small part on the longer journey for these communities, but we hope that our investments here and the exposure brought by The Foundation’s brand can be a proof point that attracts follow-on funding that can carry the work forward in years to come, in this community and others like it.”
Building Momentum
This pivotal shift has fostered a renewed sense of hope and possibility throughout the region. Stephenson, highlighted this transformation, stating, “This investment from The BlackRock Foundation really inspires people to think bigger about what is possible and to approach things with a planning mindset. It has been phenomenal to see the spirit that has come from the investment, and the hope and energy that it has inspired.” Dr. Booker also emphasized the importance of this place-based approach, saying, “It's really about empowering the community, trusting them to know their community best, and letting them say, ‘This is what we need.’” Most importantly, these shifts made by The BlackRock Foundation are catalyzing opportunities to attract follow-on investments–an approach that allows the community to carry on this work over time, and beyond this initial investment. With more coordination across the ecosystem, Union County is able to build momentum to create sustained and meaningful generational impact.
In Los Angeles, systems change starts locally
Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States, and LA County comprises 88 cities. Divide that into the number of neighborhoods with different needs, and you have a very varied community to serve. Despite these complexities, one issue that the most under-resourced people share in LA County is the lack of parks and opportunities for sport and play; plus recess isn’t mandated in the vast majority of schools.
So, in a place with an unmatched number of professional sports teams — the Dodgers, the Angels, the Kings, the Clippers; the list goes on — a huge number of young people, from largely Latino and Black communities, are without access to sports and the benefits it brings: health, team building, coaching, purpose, achievement, new experiences, and (for parents) child care. This is proven to impact girls in the area the most: according to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation, young women have the highest dropout rate from sports, as many families can’t afford to send multiple children to programs and often rely on young women to act as essential caregiving support.
In response to this issue, the LA84 Foundation, formed in the wake of the 1984 Olympics in LA, created the Play Equity Fund (PEF) to “level the playing field” for access to sports, and establish the only nonprofit focused solely on “play equity” as a social justice issue. The team running the fund is unique in their approach: funding community, grassroots organizations that many philanthropies would not usually take a chance on. “We act as a convener and capacity builder, sharing research, convening, helping close gaps for grassroots organizations, and using our network insights and reach to change policies and systems,” says Play Equity Fund President, Renata Simril.
“The work we do for systems change — that’s not going to happen with one investment in one year. Come to us and put money in for five years and we’ll track the impact. If you want to have long-term impact and lift up BIPOC organizations, look at these changemaker intermediaries.”
Put grassroots first
PEF has helped drive key data to prove the impact of physical activity on mental wellness and the ability for communities to thrive. “We did a three-year longitudinal study that shows how sports participation encourages kids to stay in school longer, and also accelerates their English language skills when they engage in sports. But the data also showed that the gap had grown wider for most low-income kids’ ability to access sports,” said Simril. To reach the most kids, PEF has focused on supporting after-school programs that work with some of the six million kids in the California public school system.
PEF started with a coalition of grantees across Southern CA — listening and learning about what they needed to survive and flourish. “It was clear what was needed was capacity building to graduate from being small mom-and-pop organizations to stronger nonprofits,” said Simril.
Youth ‘N Motion in Leimert Park, CA is a great example of this nurturing approach. Through martial arts, the nonprofit was originally helping 25 young Black men who came from low-income neighborhoods and were at risk of becoming part of the youth incarceration system. “Our first grant to them was around $5,000,” said Simril. “Most funders won’t make grants that small to organizations of their size. We wanted to take a risk on this underdog. Eight years later, Youth ‘N Motion just received a $150k grant from a larger philanthropy, helping them expand to archery, and dance; and they serve hundreds of kids.”
Simril explains their flexibility in building capacity. “We bring the infrastructure they need to raise awareness but don’t know how to speak to the press, surface expert trends on mental wellness — whatever they need, we offer, to help them build capacity to serve more kids.”
Fernando Ramirez, Chief Policy and Public Affairs Officer at LA84 Foundation/Play Equity Fund explained the unique mindset: “I see it as ‘we work for these organizations.’ In each of those categories we have added resources or supported policy changes that unlock resources, space, and coaches.”
Invest in trusted relationships
Renata Simril is a vocal advocate for larger or corporate philanthropies to trust intermediaries like PEF to help them work effectively deep within neighborhoods because those intermediaries can help bridge the gap between decision-makers and community voices. PEF now has reach into 50 organizations in Southern California — what they call their “Voices of Play Equity” — allowing funders to leverage their dollars to go deep in specific neighborhoods and impact hundreds or thousands of lives. Plus, those funds not only go directly to local programs; they also contribute to accelerating the community pressure that PEF harnesses to help inform local and state policy in favor of the communities they serve. For example, they recently worked to create the King County Play Equity Coalition which helped pass a recess bill in Seattle, and did the same in California, guaranteeing recess for elementary students.
“Funders need to open their dollars to intermediaries. We can help you go directly to an organization, or have a reach into the system of sport development. We can help you reach scale — reach hundreds of kids and those small BIPOC organizations at scale. And we will do the communications,” said Simril.
PEF put this intermediary role into action by partnering with Nike on a new initiative called ‘Made to Play’ in the Boyle Heights and Watts neighborhoods. The three-year, $1.3 million program aims to empower 13 community organizations to create equal access to play for Latina and Black girls.
“Nike asked to partner with us given our relationships on the ground and deep connections to this community – so we helped curate programs because of the trust we have here," said Simril. “Now we’re doing a second term with those organizations and creating a toolkit that can inform everyone involved in this type of work.”
Quote: Matt Geschke
The power of “opportunity influencers”
Derek Steele is the Executive Director of the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI), a nonprofit that “exists to improve the overall health, education and wellbeing of youth and community of color by empowering them to enact the change they want to see” through research, training and community mobilization, in LA County and beyond. He is also the chair of the Care First Community Investment Advisory Committee that PEF works closely with to unlock resources for the sports based youth development sector.
“Young people don’t have a choice what family or community they were born into. But everything that is in that built environment has everything to do with their life outcomes — their ability to be school-ready, to be housed, to get a job. The social-emotional aspect — the health dynamics, is a place built for walkability, is it built for play?” said Steele.
Like PEF, Steele’s organization is focused on disrupting the cycles of concentrated disadvantage by creating what he calls “intentional randomness.” He explained: “Everyone has something random that changed things for them — the random math teacher that saw something in them that no one else did; the mom that made sure they had to go to soccer practice that meant that they ended up going on a summer trip to Europe. It’s random to that person, but it's intentional for the person giving the care. It’s the intention of the heart. We create an atmosphere so those things can happen, like through our Scholars Program.”
“The problems in South LA are not the same in Lancaster County or Long Beach. You have to have place-based strategies that help to provide the opportunity for those communities to come together and ideate on what the future looks like. The tools might be the same but the solutions are different.”
Care First Community Investment
In 2020, LA County approved Measure J which dedicated at least ten percent of the County’s locally generated unrestricted funds to address racial injustice and over-incarceration of Black and Brown communities. The money is meant to fund community investments; every year, $100 million is distributed to community programs from a “care first” standpoint.
A ‘Care First Investment Advisory Committee’ was established to oversee equitable distribution of those resources — a body of 24 people from all walks of life, chaired by Derek Steele for the last two years.
“That looks like nearly 345 organizations getting funding to elevate the work that they’re doing,” said Steele. “Now they can scale the impact of care in our community.”
For Tranche 3 of the funding, PEF led a large-scale community-driven process to make the case for funding to play equity-driven organizations. “We ran a 6-8 month campaign with community-attended meetings throughout the county — every concept that was submitted was eligible. PEF put together a leading program and submitted a concept for sport play and movement as a prevention to the criminal justice system, and won those organizations $15 million dollars,” said Fernando Ramirez.
The concept submitted by PEF was a demonstration of how on-the-ground, place-based intermediaries can make a huge difference to communities, by embedding equity into the process of funding: “We deconstructed the application process — we helped them apply for the money, guided them on what words to use,” said PEF leader Renata Simril.
“Employment is a central tenet for us, but not just employment that takes advantage of the community to extract from it, as West Virginia has done in the past. It’s about bringing along the community in this reclamation process.”
In Los Angeles, systems change starts locally
Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States, and LA County comprises 88 cities. Divide that into the number of neighborhoods with different needs, and you have a very varied community to serve. Despite these complexities, one issue that the most under-resourced people share in LA County is the lack of parks and opportunities for sport and play; plus recess isn’t mandated in the vast majority of schools.
So, in a place with an unmatched number of professional sports teams — the Dodgers, the Angels, the Kings, the Clippers; the list goes on — a huge number of young people, from largely Latino and Black communities, are without access to sports and the benefits it brings: health, team building, coaching, purpose, achievement, new experiences, and (for parents) child care. This is proven to impact girls in the area the most: according to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation, young women have the highest dropout rate from sports, as many families can’t afford to send multiple children to programs and often rely on young women to act as essential caregiving support.
In response to this issue, the LA84 Foundation, formed in the wake of the 1984 Olympics in LA, created the Play Equity Fund (PEF) to “level the playing field” for access to sports, and establish the only nonprofit focused solely on “play equity” as a social justice issue. The team running the fund is unique in their approach: funding community, grassroots organizations that many philanthropies would not usually take a chance on. “We act as a convener and capacity builder, sharing research, convening, helping close gaps for grassroots organizations, and using our network insights and reach to change policies and systems,” says Play Equity Fund President, Renata Simril.
“The work we do for systems change — that’s not going to happen with one investment in one year. Come to us and put money in for five years and we’ll track the impact. If you want to have long-term impact and lift up BIPOC organizations, look at these changemaker intermediaries.”
Put grassroots first
PEF has helped drive key data to prove the impact of physical activity on mental wellness and the ability for communities to thrive. “We did a three-year longitudinal study that shows how sports participation encourages kids to stay in school longer, and also accelerates their English language skills when they engage in sports. But the data also showed that the gap had grown wider for most low-income kids’ ability to access sports,” said Simril. To reach the most kids, PEF has focused on supporting after-school programs that work with some of the six million kids in the California public school system.
PEF started with a coalition of grantees across Southern CA — listening and learning about what they needed to survive and flourish. “It was clear what was needed was capacity building to graduate from being small mom-and-pop organizations to stronger nonprofits,” said Simril.
Youth ‘N Motion in Leimert Park, CA is a great example of this nurturing approach. Through martial arts, the nonprofit was originally helping 25 young Black men who came from low-income neighborhoods and were at risk of becoming part of the youth incarceration system. “Our first grant to them was around $5,000,” said Simril. “Most funders won’t make grants that small to organizations of their size. We wanted to take a risk on this underdog. Eight years later, Youth ‘N Motion just received a $150k grant from a larger philanthropy, helping them expand to archery, and dance; and they serve hundreds of kids.”
Simril explains their flexibility in building capacity. “We bring the infrastructure they need to raise awareness but don’t know how to speak to the press, surface expert trends on mental wellness — whatever they need, we offer, to help them build capacity to serve more kids.”
Fernando Ramirez, Chief Policy and Public Affairs Officer at LA84 Foundation/Play Equity Fund explained the unique mindset: “I see it as ‘we work for these organizations.’ In each of those categories we have added resources or supported policy changes that unlock resources, space, and coaches.”
Invest in trusted relationships
Renata Simril is a vocal advocate for larger or corporate philanthropies to trust intermediaries like PEF to help them work effectively deep within neighborhoods because those intermediaries can help bridge the gap between decision-makers and community voices. PEF now has reach into 50 organizations in Southern California — what they call their “Voices of Play Equity” — allowing funders to leverage their dollars to go deep in specific neighborhoods and impact hundreds or thousands of lives. Plus, those funds not only go directly to local programs; they also contribute to accelerating the community pressure that PEF harnesses to help inform local and state policy in favor of the communities they serve. For example, they recently worked to create the King County Play Equity Coalition which helped pass a recess bill in Seattle, and did the same in California, guaranteeing recess for elementary students.
“Funders need to open their dollars to intermediaries. We can help you go directly to an organization, or have a reach into the system of sport development. We can help you reach scale — reach hundreds of kids and those small BIPOC organizations at scale. And we will do the communications,” said Simril.
PEF put this intermediary role into action by partnering with Nike on a new initiative called ‘Made to Play’ in the Boyle Heights and Watts neighborhoods. The three-year, $1.3 million program aims to empower 13 community organizations to create equal access to play for Latina and Black girls.
“Nike asked to partner with us given our relationships on the ground and deep connections to this community – so we helped curate programs because of the trust we have here," said Simril. “Now we’re doing a second term with those organizations and creating a toolkit that can inform everyone involved in this type of work.”
“Win, lose, try again”
Lindsay "Abdul Latif" Ferguson grew up in South Central LA. “Being a low-income area, there were gangs and things like that [while I was living and playing in the area]. When I first started martial arts it was basically to be able to defend myself,” he says. The more he practiced, the better he got, and he quickly became a national champion, traveling to Thailand to represent the U.S. “And this year I’m being inducted into the Hall of Fame!”
In 2005, Ferguson started a small nonprofit — Youth ‘N Motion Academy— to offer martial arts as an after-school program in his neighborhood; a chance to give back to the community and pass on the knowledge and value that he gained from his experience.
Ferguson is grateful to LA84/PEF for their unique role in supporting his organization in the early days. “They have been a huge benefit to us — Youth ‘N Motion Academy received its first grant from them. Their approach is very down to earth, very clear. With most nonprofit grants, you don’t get to meet the funder. With Renata and team, it's more hands-on, you can actually talk to them and resolve issues and go from there.”
Today, Ferguson is the Founder, President, and CEO of a growing organization that serves the Leimert Park area with karate and archery. “It’s majority African American, low-income kids. The biggest deterrent is kids don’t have access to sports and play, the ability to pay tuition, or to get to the classes. So we get funding to help pay for the kids’ tuition, tournament support, and equipment.”
Why does he do it? “The value is in their confidence level, their self-esteem, the overall fact of being able to compete, know what it is to win, lose, try again.”
“This approach allows us to deepen and sustain our impact in increasing access to sport, especially for girls. Through a place-based strategy led by the Play Equity Fund, we have unlocked the learnings to fuel a positive sport experience for girls that will lead to higher rates of participation and increased retention.”
The power of “opportunity influencers”
Derek Steele is the Executive Director of the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI), a nonprofit that “exists to improve the overall health, education and wellbeing of youth and community of color by empowering them to enact the change they want to see” through research, training and community mobilization, in LA County and beyond. He is also the chair of the Care First Community Investment Advisory Committee that PEF works closely with to unlock resources for the sports based youth development sector.
“Young people don’t have a choice what family or community they were born into. But everything that is in that built environment has everything to do with their life outcomes — their ability to be school-ready, to be housed, to get a job. The social-emotional aspect — the health dynamics, is a place built for walkability, is it built for play?” said Steele.
Like PEF, Steele’s organization is focused on disrupting the cycles of concentrated disadvantage by creating what he calls “intentional randomness.” He explained: “Everyone has something random that changed things for them — the random math teacher that saw something in them that no one else did; the mom that made sure they had to go to soccer practice that meant that they ended up going on a summer trip to Europe. It’s random to that person, but it's intentional for the person giving the care. It’s the intention of the heart. We create an atmosphere so those things can happen, like through our Scholars Program.”
“The problems in South LA are not the same in Lancaster County or Long Beach. You have to have place-based strategies that help to provide the opportunity for those communities to come together and ideate on what the future looks like. The tools might be the same but the solutions are different.”
Care First Community Investment
In 2020, LA County approved Measure J which dedicated at least ten percent of the County’s locally generated unrestricted funds to address racial injustice and over-incarceration of Black and Brown communities. The money is meant to fund community investments; every year, $100 million is distributed to community programs from a “care first” standpoint.
A ‘Care First Investment Advisory Committee’ was established to oversee equitable distribution of those resources — a body of 24 people from all walks of life, chaired by Derek Steele for the last two years.
“That looks like nearly 345 organizations getting funding to elevate the work that they’re doing,” said Steele. “Now they can scale the impact of care in our community.”
For Tranche 3 of the funding, PEF led a large-scale community-driven process to make the case for funding to play equity-driven organizations. “We ran a 6-8 month campaign with community-attended meetings throughout the county — every concept that was submitted was eligible. PEF put together a leading program and submitted a concept for sport play and movement as a prevention to the criminal justice system, and won those organizations $15 million dollars,” said Fernando Ramirez.
The concept submitted by PEF was a demonstration of how on-the-ground, place-based intermediaries can make a huge difference to communities, by embedding equity into the process of funding: “We deconstructed the application process — we helped them apply for the money, guided them on what words to use,” said PEF leader Renata Simril.
In Los Angeles, systems change starts locally
Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States, and LA County comprises 88 cities. Divide that into the number of neighborhoods with different needs, and you have a very varied community to serve. Despite these complexities, one issue that the most under-resourced people share in LA County is the lack of parks and opportunities for sport and play; plus recess isn’t mandated in the vast majority of schools.
So, in a place with an unmatched number of professional sports teams — the Dodgers, the Angels, the Kings, the Clippers; the list goes on — a huge number of young people, from largely Latino and Black communities, are without access to sports and the benefits it brings: health, team building, coaching, purpose, achievement, new experiences, and (for parents) child care. This is proven to impact girls in the area the most: according to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation, young women have the highest dropout rate from sports, as many families can’t afford to send multiple children to programs and often rely on young women to act as essential caregiving support.
In response to this issue, the LA84 Foundation, formed in the wake of the 1984 Olympics in LA, created the Play Equity Fund (PEF) to “level the playing field” for access to sports, and establish the only nonprofit focused solely on “play equity” as a social justice issue. The team running the fund is unique in their approach: funding community, grassroots organizations that many philanthropies would not usually take a chance on. “We act as a convener and capacity builder, sharing research, convening, helping close gaps for grassroots organizations, and using our network insights and reach to change policies and systems,” says Play Equity Fund President, Renata Simril.
“The work we do for systems change — that’s not going to happen with one investment in one year. Come to us and put money in for five years and we’ll track the impact. If you want to have long-term impact and lift up BIPOC organizations, look at these changemaker intermediaries.”
Put grassroots first
PEF has helped drive key data to prove the impact of physical activity on mental wellness and the ability for communities to thrive. “We did a three-year longitudinal study that shows how sports participation encourages kids to stay in school longer, and also accelerates their English language skills when they engage in sports. But the data also showed that the gap had grown wider for most low-income kids’ ability to access sports,” said Simril. To reach the most kids, PEF has focused on supporting after-school programs that work with some of the six million kids in the California public school system.
PEF started with a coalition of grantees across Southern CA — listening and learning about what they needed to survive and flourish. “It was clear what was needed was capacity building to graduate from being small mom-and-pop organizations to stronger nonprofits,” said Simril.
Youth ‘N Motion in Leimert Park, CA is a great example of this nurturing approach. Through martial arts, the nonprofit was originally helping 25 young Black men who came from low-income neighborhoods and were at risk of becoming part of the youth incarceration system. “Our first grant to them was around $5,000,” said Simril. “Most funders won’t make grants that small to organizations of their size. We wanted to take a risk on this underdog. Eight years later, Youth ‘N Motion just received a $150k grant from a larger philanthropy, helping them expand to archery, and dance; and they serve hundreds of kids.”
Simril explains their flexibility in building capacity. “We bring the infrastructure they need to raise awareness but don’t know how to speak to the press, surface expert trends on mental wellness — whatever they need, we offer, to help them build capacity to serve more kids.”
Fernando Ramirez, Chief Policy and Public Affairs Officer at LA84 Foundation/Play Equity Fund explained the unique mindset: “I see it as ‘we work for these organizations.’ In each of those categories we have added resources or supported policy changes that unlock resources, space, and coaches.”
Invest in trusted relationships
Renata Simril is a vocal advocate for larger or corporate philanthropies to trust intermediaries like PEF to help them work effectively deep within neighborhoods because those intermediaries can help bridge the gap between decision-makers and community voices. PEF now has reach into 50 organizations in Southern California — what they call their “Voices of Play Equity” — allowing funders to leverage their dollars to go deep in specific neighborhoods and impact hundreds or thousands of lives. Plus, those funds not only go directly to local programs; they also contribute to accelerating the community pressure that PEF harnesses to help inform local and state policy in favor of the communities they serve. For example, they recently worked to create the King County Play Equity Coalition which helped pass a recess bill in Seattle, and did the same in California, guaranteeing recess for elementary students.
“Funders need to open their dollars to intermediaries. We can help you go directly to an organization, or have a reach into the system of sport development. We can help you reach scale — reach hundreds of kids and those small BIPOC organizations at scale. And we will do the communications,” said Simril.
PEF put this intermediary role into action by partnering with Nike on a new initiative called ‘Made to Play’ in the Boyle Heights and Watts neighborhoods. The three-year, $1.3 million program aims to empower 13 community organizations to create equal access to play for Latina and Black girls.
“Nike asked to partner with us given our relationships on the ground and deep connections to this community – so we helped curate programs because of the trust we have here," said Simril. “Now we’re doing a second term with those organizations and creating a toolkit that can inform everyone involved in this type of work.”
“This approach allows us to deepen and sustain our impact in increasing access to sport, especially for girls. Through a place-based strategy led by the Play Equity Fund, we have unlocked the learnings to fuel a positive sport experience for girls that will lead to higher rates of participation and increased retention.”
The power of “opportunity influencers”
Derek Steele is the Executive Director of the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI), a nonprofit that “exists to improve the overall health, education and wellbeing of youth and community of color by empowering them to enact the change they want to see” through research, training and community mobilization, in LA County and beyond. He is also the chair of the Care First Community Investment Advisory Committee that PEF works closely with to unlock resources for the sports based youth development sector.
“Young people don’t have a choice what family or community they were born into. But everything that is in that built environment has everything to do with their life outcomes — their ability to be school-ready, to be housed, to get a job. The social-emotional aspect — the health dynamics, is a place built for walkability, is it built for play?” said Steele.
Like PEF, Steele’s organization is focused on disrupting the cycles of concentrated disadvantage by creating what he calls “intentional randomness.” He explained: “Everyone has something random that changed things for them — the random math teacher that saw something in them that no one else did; the mom that made sure they had to go to soccer practice that meant that they ended up going on a summer trip to Europe. It’s random to that person, but it's intentional for the person giving the care. It’s the intention of the heart. We create an atmosphere so those things can happen, like through our Scholars Program.”
Quote: Derek Steele
