At this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Los Angeles County joined other regional municipalities, non-profits and organizations in an initiative to unify local efforts when applying for philanthropic, state and federal grants. LA n Sync coordinates Los Angeles County and other LA n Sync partners to collectively and effectively work together when applying for grants.
Every year, Los Angeles County misses out on millions of dollars from large-scale grants from the state, federal government, philanthropic organizations or all three due to our inability to coordinate our efforts properly. We need to bring everyone together, public and private, for the benefit of our economy. Los Angeles County deserves its fair share.
According to the Annenberg Foundation, in 2010, New York City received $1.3 billion in philanthropic grants, San Francisco received $669 million, and the Los Angeles area as a region received only $372 million. California ranked 43rd nationally in terms of paying out more to the country in taxes than it takes in, receiving $0.73 back for each dollar paid.
We always say we need to ‘be at the table’ to position ourselves for large grants, but oftentimes there is either no table or there are 50 different tables from 50 different zip codes, all competing for the same grants. LA n Sync will give us the opportunity to bring everyone in the region to one table so that we do not miss out on big ticket initiatives in such areas as transportation, healthcare and social services. We can do better than $372 million!
The Chief Executive Officer will report back to the Board of Supervisors on the benefits of funding opportunities, the need and feasibility for creating a County liaison to the philanthropic community, departmental funding priorities that LA n Sync could support, and how the County can work hand-in-hand with organizations with the same priorities.