#challenge grant

I felt it was important that if you're in the community, to be actively engaged and beautify the community. Sustainability has always been a part of my life. I also started the first bicycle co-op in South LA. [The Challenge Grant] was a project I really wanted to be involved in because it's one of the projects we need to build the capacity to do in South LA.

What was the inspiration to apply? 

Naomi and everyone on the team- Andres, Estuardo, Malcolm are all folks who live in South LA. As being members of the community, we know what we would like to see. This was an opportunity to have those things in South LA through this Great Streets Project. That was a really exciting thing for us. 

As far as choosing the project that we did, Trust South LA and myself have been doing work around mobility and collecting data around bike paths, pedestrian safety and cycling safety. We knew that the intersection of Crenshaw and Florence has a lot of issues. It was a great opportunity for us to get the community involved in it and see how we can make it safe and fun while educating folks.

What’s made your team a good fit for the Challenge Grant?

The strength of the individual organizations that came together to be a team. Trust South LA has been doing some awesome work. [Community Health Councils] has been doing some great work. I was really excited when I heard who was going to be on the team. I get to work with Malcolm, Naomi and Michael who is an architect I brought in through the work he did on the bike co-op. He’s very active in South LA. In one hand the organizations, in the other hand, we have some visionaries on the team that are really excited to be doing some new and different things.

How did the Street Beats team come together?

It’s about relationships. I have a relationship with Malcolm. I had a relationship with Michael through the work that we have been doing. Andres, a few years ago we started running into each other and spoke to each other about the same things. Naomi, through her work was also in the same spaces I was in. On the occasions we would speak, it would be about the same thing. It was the energy of everyone that came through. The chemistry that came together between organizations and individuals made it such an obvious thing.

Your team raised over $10,000! How was your experience raising those funds?

Lucky for our team, I had already experience doing fundraising through ioby. It was great for the team. All we needed to do was carve out the time to make the phone calls and get folks to donate. Once we were able to get that together, we really able to do a good job. It was really important to get a lot of small donations. We had to go out to the community to talk about the project we were doing. We went to block clubs and community meetings and spoke to them. I’m really happy were able to do that and get the amount of donations were able to get. It made us secure that the community is invested in the project. So not just talking to the community but getting ideas for what they like and any new things we’d be able to incorporate. We wanted it to be for and by the community. Fundraising was our first foray into bringing the community into it.

What has been the biggest challenge so far?

One of the things I’m doing right now is dealing with small vendor and local business and the challenges they have. We’re ordering t-shirts from a small vendor who actually has a shop on Florence. We want to get these t-shirts but the way the timeline is and how those types of things work is a challenge. I had the same thing with the guy that did the flyers with us. 

One of the things I’d like to see done is activate the empty lots so we can highlight some of the small businesses in the area. If people are working out of their homes or mobile, we can try to bring them in. That’s one of the challenges that came up this week. 

Next big challenge?

The next big challenge for us is probably the technical aspects of things. Visualizing it is one thing. Doing the budget is one thing but when it comes down to it: day-of. We’ll definitely have the manpower and volunteers because of the community buy in. But are we going to actually be able to build the stuff we intend on? Right now what we’re dealing with is community involvement. We have the dates and sites for that. Dealing with DOT, managing the traffic and shutting down parts of the street on the day-of will be issues.

For More information on Street Beats follow them on twitter and check out their website. 

...a year and a half ago. There was a group of people, including Councilman [Bonin], who walked along Venice Blvd and got in touch with a local business who got in touch with me. I wanted to be a part of it especially as the Chamber of Commerce, because that's the whole idea: [what makes a Great Street] should come from the people who live there and work there. It's not top-down. 

What was the inspiration to apply for this Grant?

We were planning on doing another Small Business Saturday this year and thought this would be a opportunity to do it on a bigger scale and tie it in with doing a demonstration of what the Great Street can look like. However, Great Streets is not just the physical part but people walking down the street and going ‘hey, how are you?’ People are part of this community, they want to feel safe and welcome here. I think that's one of the overall goals of the initiative - to feel that sense of community.

What do you think makes your organization, your team a unique fit for the Challenge Grant?

I think everyone on our team sees the possibilities and sees the vision of what Great Streets can be and that was enough to get on board. Everyone has a specific angle from which they’re coming from: community building, making sure the business do well, economic growth, walkability, mobility issues, art and the community character. So all of us are coming from a different area. And of course we have the sustainability component because in Mar Vista we have a very passionate group of people who are working on that issue all the time.

Part of the Challenge Grant is about building strong community partners - how did your team come together?

We have a strong community partner in the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. They donate coffee and pastries to schools for PTA meetings, they donate space for people to meet, like our Chamber. They really helped us launch from the beginning. With our art component, there were people who wanted to do this before the grant came along so we partnered with them. The bike coalition had some ideas about bike lanes. They came to us and said they would love to help with whoever is doing a project in this area if it involves bike lanes. The Community Council has had a Great Streets ad-hoc committee that they formed almost a year ago now. They are meeting monthly and it was a chance when the grant was announced for a lot of people to come in. That was a great connection.

What was your experience like with fundraising?

Panic, panic, panic, then ‘Oh my god it worked!’ I thought we were in trouble, then all of a sudden in the last 3 days the bulk of it came in. We had some people come in early that were good anchors but honestly, I was panicking. Our strategy for fundraising was going to our communities of business and saying: this is an amazing opportunity, we did it last year with just a few sponsors. We went back to all those sponsors and explained their same donation was even more effective: the matching fund through ioby made each donation twice as effective. We told them ‘remember what we did last year? it's going to be bigger and better!’ 

What has been your strategy for community outreach?

Turns out there are 120 businesses between Inglewood and Beethoven. We’re going in and building relationships with all of them. That outreach is in person. I do a ton of emails but they are not as effective as I’d like. I always say 4 touches: I call, I email, I’ve met with them. It’s going to take that and more for some. I don’t do email blasts - only individual emails with a personal touch. It's just a lot of man hours.

What are some of the biggest challenges you think you will face moving forward?

We are a volunteer organization that just launched so we don't have a staff. We’re just doing it because we think it's awesome. I’m always looking for ways to empower them and help them however possible. Fundraising was a big challenge. But now it's more operational: how many more volunteers do we need that day? How many do we need ahead of time? How are we going to build what we need?  Who's going to do that? How do we deploy that? And how do we clean it up? It's not hard but figuring out how we’re going to do it is our next big challenge. 

Continue here to read more about our Great Streets Challenge Grant and all our recipients.