Create the Change

City of Los Angeles

While some schools and community groups will plan occasional community service events, Project Giving Kids offers added support including a curated nonprofit partner network to engage with on an ongoing basis. Through the use of our website and Give Back App, children, teens, and families can build ongoing service relationships with nonprofits in their community connected to causes they care passionately about. PGK has established a distinct position in the youth volunteer engagement space by leveraging technology to create a platform where nonprofits looking to promote and expand their opportunities for youth and families can connect with those seeking such service experiences. Create the Change® brings the PGK platform to life, providing numerous hands-on opportunities to volunteer through PGK's network of nonprofit partners. Create the Change® ultimately benefits thousands of local area residents through the activities conducted by hundreds of volunteers.

To date, PGK has hosted 9 Create the Change Day events involving over 3,200 individuals and benefiting over 70 different nonprofit organizations. In 2020 alone, our Create the Change program generated over 1,200 hours of service and more than 3,750 points of impact. On our platform, 2020 website visits increased 172% over 2019 with an estimated 64,593 visits last year. PGK’s annual Create the Change® Day is a successful model for engaging local youth in a meaningful afternoon of hands-on service, providing multiple ways to make a difference and expose youth to a variety of nonprofits and community needs. Over the past 5 years, we have brought together dozens of nonprofit partners with hundreds of children, families, and youth organizations for a day of direct service. In 2020, we pivoted Create the Change® Day to a virtual week of service, offering 24 unique opportunities for youth to participate in a safe and productive way, featuring 3 service modules for each of our 8 cause areas. In 2021, we will be expanding and combining what we have done historically with our virtual offerings added during the COVID pandemic, to allow for more access to volunteerism and our vetted service opportunities. We aim to support our 50 Los Angeles nonprofit partners by bringing together hundreds of volunteers in-person and virtually to provide thousands of points of impact.

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

We have over 50 nonprofit partners in the Los Angeles area, and hundreds of youth volunteers - our goal is to connect these together so that youth can learn about what cause areas are most meaningful to them and to build a community of support for our nonprofit partners. With so many nonprofit organizations struggling to maintain operations at this time, we strongly believe that cross-sector collaboration and engaging new volunteers and donors in the work of our nonprofit partners is essential to getting through this period of uncertainty and to ushering in a more sustainable future for the nonprofit sector. Through service connections facilitated by PGK, kids become meaningfully engaged at a critical time during their development in ways that match their interests and abilities. Studies show that community service during the early years increases overall levels of civic engagement throughout life, which will ultimately benefit the greater Los Angeles community.

We track: - Number of participants - Number of service hours contributed (by those participants) - Number of nonprofits benefiting from the service sessions - Number of points of impact resulting from the volunteers’ efforts (items and/or donations produced in conjunction with the activities) - demographics (age, geography, ethnicity, etc.) of participants to ensure access Further, PGK captures qualitative data through survey instruments administered to our nonprofit partners, program participants, and users of our platform including: - relevance, usefulness, and benefit of activity to participants (reflection questions, what they learned, how likely they are to attend again, likelihood of referral to others) - quotes, pictures, anecdotes

Volunteerism

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