Program + Communications + Grant Dollars = Making A Difference

Collaboration is always a big topic in foundation circles.  But usually collaboration discussions focus on foundations teaming together. There’s another kind of collaboration that matters and which is growing in importance – program and communications staff inside foundations working together to advance their organizations’ missions.

To show the good things that happen for foundations and the people they are trying to serve when program and communications work together, the Communications Network asked Julio Marcial, a program director at the California Wellness Foundation, to describe how a modest communications investment – underwritten by the foundation’s program staff -- helped do more than could have been accomplished through a traditional grantmaking initiative alone.

Here’s his foundation’s story:

More than 1,000 homeless children live in or adjacent to a 50-block area of downtown Los Angeles—the city’s Skid row.  Most live on the streets while a few “lucky” ones live in single room occupancy hotels. Whether “home” is a sidewalk or a hotel, these young people live in the midst of drug dealers and prostitutes, and the streets are their playground.
 
Enter Franklin Antonio Arburtha. In April 2005, and only 14 at the time, Arburtha produced a video documentary called We’re Not Bad Kids that showed the best and worst of skid row, including a candlelight vigil for a woman who had been stabbed to death as children looked on. The camera to shoot the documentary came from the United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP)—a nonprofit that works tirelessly on behalf of the residents of LA’s Central City East section.

Aburtha didn't stop there.  Next, with help from other youth living on skid row, he produced a survey, “Toxic Playground: Growing Up in Skid row” to further illuminate hardships for children living on Skid row.  The survey revealed that little, if any, effort was being made to address the needs of the children of Skid row. Despite more than 30 service providers in the area, programs for children were limited to feeding projects. At the same time, the study provided practical steps public agencies could take to make a qualitative difference in the lives of the children living in skid row.
 
After seeing the survey, UCEPP staff felt something needed to be done; these children had been ignored far too long. Unfortunately UCEPP had no money to launch a public awareness campaign.
 
After meeting staff from The California Wellness Foundation at a conference on violence prevention, UCEPP applied for and was awarded a $15,000 grant through the Foundation’s media and civic partnerships program. The overarching goal of the media and civic partnerships program is to advance the Foundation’s grantmaking mission through partnerships with journalists, editors and media organizations.  Arburtha and UCEPP now had the financial resources to hire a public relations firm to help the organization tell its own story.  
 
In partnership with Hoy, the Spanish-language sister publication of the Los Angeles Times, UCEPP sponsored a forum, “Toxic Playground” at the Japanese American National Museum in November 2005.  Policymakers and opinion leaders were invited for a screening of Arburtha’s video (later excerpted on CNN and the Today Show), a presentation of the survey findings, and to discuss how to improve the health and well-being of children living in Skid row.  That event was followed by mailings to opinion leaders, placements of advertorials in local publications, media coverage and op-eds in local newspapers – a host of activities that both brought attention to the plight of the homeless youth and informed city and school officials to act.
 
As a result:
 
Two legislators asked the youth to present their findings to the California Assembly Health Committee;

The Los Angeles Unified School District school board passed a resolution adopting the majority of recommendations presented in the “Toxic Playground” report.

The Los Angeles Police Department agreed to stop ticketing youth for loitering; and

The city of Los Angeles Parks and Recreation department opened recreational facilities in skid row for the first time in 20 years.
 
Even under the best of circumstances it is difficult to change public policy to improve the health and well-being of the community, and more so when that community is Skid row.

But Arburtha’s and UCEPP’s leadership and persistence, along with foundation support, resulted in new public policies that have created a safer and healthier place for young people living on skid row.

The California Wellness Foundation believes strategic communications adds significant value to our grantmaking and our mission. By bringing more attention to the work of grantees, we seek to strengthen their positions as spokespersons on health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention — and in the process, make philanthropy meaningful to diverse audiences.