Funder Highlight: Ralph M. Parsons Foundation

LISC is proud to have a partnership with the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to unrestricted financial support of underserved communities within LA. It does this by investing in civic, cultural, education, health, and human services organizations that offer direct services to local community leaders. One such investment is the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders, a ten-day seminar at Stanford University, where nonprofit leaders around LA learn advanced professional development skills. This invite-only roster includes LISC LA’s Executive Director Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, who was selected to participate in the program this past summer.  

Apart from providing standard funding to nonprofits, Ralph M. Parsons contributes to the strategic restructuring of nonprofits themselves, a multi-pronged capacity-building effort meant to increase their efficiency and the impact. The Foundation is a core sponsor of the Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative (NSI), which pioneers strategies from for-profits to organize new coalitions, back-office consolidations, and mergers to preserve the effectiveness of existing nonprofit organizations. 

NSI also offers grants that provide for consulting services and merger overhead, which go to improving budget management and catalyzes the forging of new partnerships between smaller nonprofits. Since its inception, the initiative has raised $3.7 million, with $675,000 from Ralph M. Parsons, and has deployed about $2 million in support of 128 organizations engaging in 48 restructuring efforts. 

In addition, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation is involved with child welfare and family engagement throughout LA County. In collaboration with 17 other philanthropic organizations, it contributed $75,000 towards the establishment of the Center for Strategic Public-Private Partnerships (CSPP). Its purpose is to create more connections among federal, state, and private partners to better serve low-income youth and their families. CSPP is the unprecedented result of a joint philanthropic push for reformation of the LA foster care system, and will collaborate with the nonprofit community to develop new methods of securing better care for vulnerable children, as well as boosting the recruitment of foster care families. 

Thanks to the support of the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, LISC LA is able to support the development of inclusive, sustainable, and healthy communities. We have leveraged over $2.3 million for veteran housing, $16.4 million towards general affordable housing, and $50,000 of  capital for small business development. We will continue to invest in the people and organizations that help LA thrive, in order to ensure the health and wellbeing of communities where its citizens live, work, and play.