Though the 2025 LA2050 Grant Challenge, 55 LA-area nonprofit organizations have received grants totaling nearly $3 million, including three based in Downtown LA.
LA2050 is an initiative of the Goldhirsh Foundation. This year’s LA2050 Grants Challenge theme, “LA, Together,” was a powerful message following the wildfires that struck the region in January.
“This has not been an easy year for Los Angeles,” said Goldhirsh Foundation President Tara Roth, whose own family was displaced for seven months by the wildfires. “The Goldhirsh Foundation’s commitment to experimentation, collaboration and responsiveness to the needs of the community remains stronger than ever.”
Downtown LA nonprofits that were selected as part of the 2025 LA2050 Grant Challenge include Creating Justice LA, Ryman Arts and Safe Parking LA.
“Congratulations to this year’s LA2050 Grants Challenge winners,” said Joel Arquillos, executive director, Snap Foundation. “Your bold, purpose-driven work embodies the power of community and creativity to lift up Angelenos across all of Los Angeles County. At the Snap Foundation, we believe that opportunity should be available to everyone, regardless of background, and that supporting underrepresented young people in forging their own creative journeys is how we catalyze a brighter, more equitable future together.”
Creating Justice LA is a nonprofit operating in Skid Row, building community through social and economic innovation. Its main program, The Peace and Healing Center, has entered its third year of offering a space full of resources and programming. The grant will primarily address income inequality, expanding current programs and initiatives.
“It’s through the lived experience lens that our organization addresses income inequality and community safety,” the nonprofit wrote online. “The vast majority of our staff have lived, or continue to live, in Skid Row. Over the last 19 years, Skid Row has lived through all sorts of services, campaigns, promises, and interventions intended to uplift the community. That experience is what informs our understanding of what culturally-relevant innovation in Skid Row actually is; solutions that go beyond capitalism, because it’s those same ways of being that continue to keep people outside the economic, experiential, cultural bubbles of traditional advancement.”
Ryman Arts, based at 1933 S. Broadway, aims to transform lives by creating access and opportunity for young artists. Its focus largely is on students from underserved communities or schools with low access to advanced art instruction. With this grant funding, it will support “Launching Young Artists into LA’s Creative Economy,” a new workforce development pilot.
Los Angeles powers the global creative economy, yet industries like animation, design, and digital storytelling remain largely inaccessible to young people growing up in its own neighborhoods…. We see this clearly in our own alumni,” the nonprofit wrote online. “They have the talent and drive — but creative careers still feel out of reach without further support. This isn’t a deficit of ambition or ability. It’s a deficit of access, networks and support systems. That is the issue we aim to address.”
Safe Parking LA was founded in 2017 to help people and their families living in their vehicles, providing safe overnight parking and advocating for fair and equitable treatment for individuals that are currently unhoused. With its grant funding, the nonprofit will support the Women’s Safe Parking Program, providing overnight refuge and trauma-informed support for unaccompanied women and women-led households living in their vehicles.
“Women living in vehicles remain especially vulnerable, often avoiding congregate shelters to maintain autonomy, protect their mobility, and stay with pets, children, or belongings,” the nonprofit wrote. “Vehicular homelessness now comprises nearly 45% of the unsheltered population in LA. Women living in their vehicles are disproportionately Black and Latina, and they often remain hidden from outreach systems due to lack of trust, safety concerns, and stigma.”
These grants are selected and distributed by the Goldhirsh Foundation with support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
Learn more at la2050.org.