2022 Year in Review
We are so proud of what we accomplished in 2022. Check out our Top 12 Achievements from 2022 and join us in celebrating our impact!
Served 32% More Families
We served 275 families in 2022, up from 208, through our Economic Mobility Program Expansion Pilot, serving families Emergency Housing Vouchers, the opening of Missouri Place, and new referrals for families living in Scattered Site Housing.
Learn about the families we spotlighted in 2022: Elijah (March), Nancy and Shardan (October), and The Powell Family (December).
Missouri Place is Up and Running
Thomas Safran & Associates’ Missouri Place Apartments opened in spring 2022 and nearly all 73 units are now occupied and being serviced by Imagine LA!
The opening was celebrated at an Open House featuring Mayor Garcetti and Charneshia Antoinette, a Missouri Place resident, who captivated the crowd by sharing about her lived experience and opened her apartment up for attendees to tour.
Scaling our Economic Mobility Program: Jobs, Childcare, Financial Fitness, and Navigating Public Benefits
Our Economic Mobility Program 2022 Expansion Pilot provided Living-Wage Career Pathways, access to viable childcare and tax credits, Financial Fitness services, and navigating the social safety net to 85 new families through partnerships with Upward Bound House, Children’s Institute, The Whole Child, and Union Station Homeless Services.
This critical pilot of EMP’s scalability and impact was possible thanks to support from Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Award, the Carl and Roberta Deutsch Foundation, and the Wurwand Foundation.
More Mentors, More Transformative Relationships
Despite the ongoing pandemic, 17 family members were matched with new mentors, including our Joe Takai, our Board Chair and a Partner at McKinsey & Co. His mentee, a single father of two, recently moved into in Missouri Place. Joe described his experience mentoring Dan as “more rewarding and transformative – for me! – than I could have ever imagined.”
Meet our 2022 Mentors of the Month: Logan Herr (February) and Brenda Imes (May).
Joyful In-Person Family Fun Events
We hosted 5 joyful family fun events in-person in 2022 – a shift from the drive-thru format we embraced during the first two years of the pandemic. This year’s events saw more than 250 families in attendance – that’s more than 50 families per event and a new record for Imagine LA!
Learn more about our events: Love Yourself, Celebration of Family Festival, Back-to-School Bash, Thanksgiving Grab-and-Go, and Winter Wonderland.
Social Benefit + Social Benefit Navigator
We launched a new “sister” organization, Social Benefit, co-founded by Imagine LA’s founding CEO, Jill Bauman and Brit Moore Gilmore to incubate and pilot our innovative Social Benefit Navigator – an online tool for individuals and case managers seeking to access available public benefits and tax credits and forecast changes to those benefits with changes to income. Social Benefit will also bring transparency to the complex social benefits system and seek systems change via public policy advocacy.
A $1MM grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation will allow for SBN Beta testing and the launch of pilot over the next two years with LA-area agency partners. The SBN will then be extended throughout LA County and offered to other agencies.
Rise Together Award Winner Magic Johnson at The Imagine Ball
Grew Fundraising Thanks to Generous Partners & 195 New Donors
Thanks in no small part to our star-studded Imagine Ball honoring Magic Johnson, and key funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Carl and Roberta Deutsch Foundation, May and Stanley Smith Foundation, Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Bank of America, Reissa Foundation, Cedars-Sinai Medical Group and Foundation, Rose Hills Foundation, Lawrence Welk Family Foundation, Karisma Foundation, Pfaffinger Foundation, Skylight Foundation, Specialty Family Foundation, Louis L. Borick Foundation, Union Bank Foundation, Capital Group Company, Johnny Carson Foundation, Isadore and Bertha Gudelsky Family Foundation, City National Bank, and many more!
Impactful Partnerships
Our impact is possible thanks to many incredible partners. Our top partners from 2022 included Chicas Tacos, Rixx Lotion, NGA Hancock Park, Shelter Partnership, Larchmont Charter School, The Little Market, Kaiser Permanente West LA, JoJo Rings, Sackcloth & Ashes, Wilshire Rotary Club, LA Care, LA Trial Lawyers Charities, Liberty Baptist Church, Big Sunday, Baby2Baby, Wells Fargo, McKinsey & Co, NuMe, Mattel, Cornerstone West LA, Temple Valley Beth Shalom, and more.
Sector Leadership & Advocacy
We used our voice and platform to be a leader in the family homelessness and poverty sector through dozens of advocacy actions and participation in coalition campaigns, leading presentations at conferences and webinars (including testifying to the LA County Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness and our “Examining the Complex Safety Net” webinar with USC Price Center), and hosting our Spring Salon with Sarah Dusseault.
The highlight for us was being invited to join Ascend at the Aspen Institute – "a catalyst and convener for systems, policy, and social impact leaders working to create a society where every family passes a legacy of prosperity and well-being from one generation to the next."
Leadership, Board, and Committee Growth
CEO TuLynn Smylie
We hired a new CEO, TuLynn Smylie, added 4 dynamic leaders to our Board of Directors (including two Imagine LA graduates), and recruited 18 new members to serve on our Program, Community Engagement, Finance, HR, Social Benefit, and Imagine Ball Committees.
A highlight from this year was hosting our first Board Retreat since 2019, where our Board and Leadership bonded, assessed our progress against our 2022-2024 Strategic Plan, and charted a path to success in 2023.
Among our Board and Committee Members, 63% are women, 55% identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, 35% have participated in our Mentorship Program, and 15% have lived experience of poverty and/or homelessness.
Upgrading and Updating our Infrastructure and Systems
We leaned into our data and processes in 2022, with a cross-departmental team working together to customize our Salesforce platform for accurate and easy reporting of all outcomes (thanks to funding from The Ahmanson Foundation).
We also revamped our new staff onboarding processes to be slower and more relationship-focused, streamlined our accounting and finance workflows for greater automation and clearer reporting, and led multiple all-staff technology trainings for skill-building and problem-solving.
Investing in our Team and Culture
Last but certainly not least, we took the time to build and strengthen our organization’s most important asset: our people. In 2022 we hired 11 new employees, moved staff appreciation digital via Nectar , and learned and grew together in retreats and trainings (thanks to funding from Cedars-Sinai).
We also had fun, bonding together through meals, beach yoga, bowling, walking for a purpose at United Way of Greater Los Angeles’s WalkUnitedLA, and celebrations.
We could not have done this without all of our supporters, partners, staff, and families. Thank you! Here’s to many more opportunities to rise together for families in 2023!