Dear John,
Today, MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving announced LAANE as one of the Yield Giving Open Call’s awardees, and as a top-scoring organization, LAANE received $2 million!
A little backstory: in March 2023, Yield Giving launched the Open Call for community-led, community-focused organizations whose explicit purpose is to enable individuals and families to achieve substantive improvement in their well-being through foundational resources. The Open Call received 6,353 applications and initially planned for 250 awards of $1 million each. In light of the incredible work of so many organizations, as judged by their peers and external panelists, the donor team decided to expand the awardee pool and the award amount.
This $2 million gift is a game changer and a ringing endorsement of LAANE’s more than 30 years of wins for working families. As we saw recently on March 5 with the victory of Long Beach Measure RW, our model of direct strategic organizing is a key recipe for long-term change. Our campaign spoke to thousands of Long Beach residents and small businesses, demonstrating how critical civic engagement is to a healthy economy. There are no shortcuts to this kind of deep organizing, and that is why this gift from Yield Giving is so important – it allows us the time, stability, and confidence to pursue big wins for working people and democracy.
We are so grateful to Yield Giving, Lever for Change, and our fellow nonprofits for their support and affirmation of our work. More information on the Yield Giving Open Call can be found at www.leverforchange.org.
