Our first-ever LA2050 Youth Ambassador cohort was made up of 78 engaged young people, ages 14 to 24, representing neighborhoods all across Los Angeles County. Last month, we tapped them to help spread the word about voting in this year’s LA2050 Grants Challenge to friends, family, and neighbors. We are proud to share that, together, they engaged more than 1,000 people in voting – approximately 12 percent of our overall total.

Last week, our team met with the Youth Ambassadors to celebrate their achievements. We reviewed the LA2050 Grants Challenge voting results, presented all Youth Ambassadors with a certificate of appreciation, raffled off prizes to our 50+ voter club, and celebrated the two participants that engaged the most voters. The Youth Ambassadors shared and compared the different strategies that they used to obtain votes. Some of the tactics included: sharing the link with group chats of family and friends, designing their own marketing materials to post around their school campus, asking teachers and classmates for help spreading the word, posting on social media, and more. The Youth Ambassadors also reported that the opportunity to share about voting gave them a meaningful chance to learn more about Los Angeles and about the philanthropic sector.

The two Youth Ambassadors with the most votes finished with an impressive 232 and 215 voters engaged each! One of our winners, Diana S. , shared: “Being able to tell voters about what the survey was interested them more. This is everyone’s community and being able to have an impact on that motivated them.”

As a part of their prize package, these two Youth Ambassadors each selected one organization from our Ideas Hub to donate $250 towards. Raelie L. chose Walk N Rollers and Diana S. chose A Sense of Home. We are so happy to donate on their behalfs and are thoroughly impressed with their hard work.

This is just the beginning for this year’s Youth Ambassadors. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with them and we are confident that their drive to make Los Angeles better for all will lead them to incredible futures. To that effect, we’re also launching a quarterly newsletter to share internships, volunteer opportunities, scholarships, and other resources to support them.

A huge thank you to our 2022 LA2050 Youth Ambassador cohort!