Who Decides Where the Money Goes? In Its 50th Year, Liberty Hill Backs 17 Community-Led Organizations Building What Comes Next

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Liberty Hill Foundation today announced the 17 members of its 2026 Fund for Change cohort, a countywide group of grassroots organizations confronting injustice, strengthening their communities, and expanding what is possible across Los Angeles County.
 
For 50 years, Liberty Hill has invested in the people and organizations building grassroots power across Los Angeles, often providing early and flexible funding at times when community organizations have had the least access to traditional philanthropy. Many members of the 2026 cohort are emerging or smaller organizations that bring trusted relationships, cultural insight, lived experience, and community-shaped solutions to the issues Angelenos are facing.

At the heart of the Fund for Change is the Community Funding Board (CFB), an innovative participatory grantmaking model grounded in the belief that those closest to community issues and solutions should help shape funding decisions. Bringing together movement leaders, donors, and philanthropic partners, the CFB is a core part of the Foundation's participatory philanthropy model. It creates a space where community expertise, philanthropic investment, and shared learning come together to strengthen movement building across Los Angeles. The 2026 Fund for Change cohort was selected through the Community Funding Board.

Several organizations in this year's cohort are working to advance issues at the core of Liberty Hill's Agenda for a Just Future, which includes ending youth incarceration as we know it and investing in a comprehensive youth development system, addressing the housing crisis and expanding tenants' rights, and eliminating toxic neighborhood oil drilling.

"What sets Fund for Change apart is not only the funding itself, but the collective wisdom behind it,' said Shane Murphy Goldsmith, President and CEO of Liberty Hill Foundation. "For 50 years, Liberty Hill has invested early in organizations that have gone on to become essential pillars of Los Angeles' movement ecosystem. These organizations carry that commitment forward and remind us that the future we're working toward is already taking root."

The work of the new cohort reflects Liberty Hill's six interconnected priority areas—Youth & Transformative Justice; LGBTQ & Gender Justice; Environmental & Climate Justice; Economic & Housing Justice; Electoral Power Building; and Healing Justice—with racial justice embedded across all of them.

"These organizations are not waiting for permission to build the future Los Angeles deserves. They are already doing the work — in neighborhoods, with families, with young people, with tenants, with workers, and with communities that know better than anyone both the harm they are up against and the solutions they are building," said Manal J. Aboelata, Chief Program Officer of Liberty Hill Foundation. "Through Fund for Change and its Community Funding Board, Liberty Hill honors that wisdom, centers people closest to the work in accountable decision-making, and moves resources toward the grassroots leadership our region so deeply needs."

Reflecting on the experience, Community Funding Board member and Liberty Hill donor advised fund holder Allison Thomas shared, "It's easy to be optimistic when you've gone through this process. People are doing incredible work across the county, and they're people that are often directly impacted by the issues or deeply connected to the communities they serve. They're selfless, they're passionate, and committed—it's very inspiring."
 
From the Antelope Valley to Long Beach and from unincorporated South Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, the 2026 Fund for Change cohort reflects the breadth and local leadership of Los Angeles' movement for justice. Thanks to the generous support of funding partners and donors, Liberty Hill is investing $1.9 million in three-year general operating grants to support the 2026 Fund for Change cohort.

As Liberty Hill celebrates 50 Years of Solidarity & Progress by continuing to invest in community-rooted leadership, the Foundation and its partners are looking toward the future of Los Angeles in the next 50 years and beginning to plant the seeds of a more just future today.
 
Meet the 2026 Fund for Change cohort at libhill.co/ffc.

About Liberty Hill Foundation

Liberty Hill Foundation is a laboratory for social change philanthropy. We leverage the power of community organizers, donor activists, and allies to advance social justice through strategic investment in grants, leadership training, and campaigns. We envision a society in which all people have a powerful voice, including those currently shut out of our democracy, people cut off from opportunities because of their skin color, gender or sexual orientation, where they live, or where they were born. We will not rest until society provides justice and equality for all. 

SOURCE Liberty Hill Foundation