LIVEPlease describe the activation your organization seeks to launch.
We will partner with 12 local environmental nonprofits and provide free support with marketing strategy, data analytics or new program development. Each organization will be paired with a dedicated team of five skilled Angelenos. Over the course of a 10 week project we will help catalyze their work and accelerate their impact on Los Angeles. Our project will bring high quality analytical support to further empower the extraordinary environmental nonprofit organizations of Los Angeles.
Which of the LIVE metrics will your activation impact?
Access to healthy food
Acres and miles of polluted waterways
Exposure to air toxins
Will your proposal impact any other LA2050 goal categories?
LA is the best place to CREATE
In what areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
Central LA
East LA
San Gabriel Valley
San Fernando Valley
South LA
Westside
South Bay
County of Los Angeles
City of Los Angeles
How will your activation mobilize Angelenos?
Advocate for policy
Trainings and/or in-person engagements
Create new tools or technologies for greater civic/political engagement
Encourage businesses to change practices
Influence individual behavior
Connect Angelenos with impactful volunteer opportunities
Increase donations to organizations and causes
Describe in greater detail how your activation will make LA the best place to LIVE?
From our golden beaches to our parks and mountains, Los Angeles has a natural beauty that is unrivalled, and it is one of the best aspects of living and working here. However, air pollution was once so bad that people were forced inside. Our oceans were unsafe to swim in. Through the tireless work of environmental nonprofit organizations Los Angeles we overcame these challenges, and while we have come a long way, there is a lot more that needs to be done. We need a sustainable energy infrastructure, oceans free of plastic pollution and clean air to breathe. We rely on organizations like the Coalition for Clean Air, the Surfrider Foundation and the US Green Building Council to advance these changes. Yet while we rely on the nonprofit environmental sector for transformative change, they operate in an extremely resource-limited field. Only 3% of charitable giving in 2015 went towards environmental issues. That is where we come in.
SeedLA is an innovative solution to empower the environmental nonprofits working towards a healthier more sustainable Los Angeles. We started from the realization that there is a large untapped resource in LA — our very own Angelenos. Our city is home to many highly skilled, motivated and sustainably minded people who want to make a positive impact. By recruiting LA’s brightest young minds we facilitate their ability for real, tangible impacts accelerating the work of environmental nonprofits. We build and train project teams specifically tailored to needs of a particular organization and help them work solve critical issues. Whether it be air quality, water pollution public transportation or energy efficiency, we provide free skilled resources to tackle the major issues facing LA by working with the most influential organizations in Los Angeles.
Ultimately, SeedLA will make Los Angeles the best place to LIVE not only by enhancing the impact of organizations already pioneering a healthier and more sustainable Los Angeles, but also by fostering the next generation of environmental leaders.
How will your activation engage Angelenos to make LA the best place to LIVE
SeedLA will make Los Angeles the best place to LIVE not only by enhancing the impact of organizations pioneering a healthier and more sustainable Los Angeles. We offer a high engagement volunteer opportunity for leaders from a wide range of academic and professional disciplines and cultivate the next generation of environmentally conscious leaders.
Each of our teams donates a total of 600 hours per project over 10 weeks. Our proposal will directly support the advancement of numerous LIVE metrics and will be spread over 12 different nonprofits partners. We believe that LA can become a model of sustainability and health by 2050, and we want to be a part of it.
The impact of the SeedLA's projects in turn affect thousands of Angelenos through the improved programs offered by environmental non-profits we work with. For example, a recent project from Fall 2017 was with Food Forward. Food Forward engages thousands of volunteers each year to collect food that otherwise would have been wasted, and redistribute to communities of need within Los Angeles. SeedLA's project supported Food Forward with their marketing strategy to improve the processes by which they engage their stakeholders, which in turn will lead to increased volunteer hours and donations.
Please explain how you will define and measure success for your activation.
SeedLA defines the success of our project based on the tangible environmental impacts our work has on Los Angeles. We will measure our success by tracking the number of hours donated and establishing custom metrics for each of our 12 partner projects. The process outlined below is how the impact of our partner projects is tracked and measured.
Prior to starting a project we will establish a statement of work with our partners outlining their expectations and goals. Each project manager is responsible for tracking the week to week progress towards these goal. An experienced senior advisor is dedicated to each team to provide advice and oversee quality control.
After the completion of the midterm and final deliverables, the SeedLA chapter president will check in with each partner to ensure projects are on track and exceeding expectations. Once the project has ended the president will follow up 4-6 months later to determine the tangible impact resulting from the project. This is how we ultimately define the success of our project. At SeedLA we serve to make an impact, not a report.
Where do you hope this activation or your organization will be in five years?
We hope to continue to make LA a better place to LIVE through our growth and continued support to local environmental non-profits.