As you may have seen, each of the 480 submissions to the 2022 LA2050 Grants Challenge is now posted live at la2050.org.

Today, we’re taking a look back at how we arrived at this point.

We began this year’s Grants Challenge in a brand new way – asking Angelenos to vote for the issues they cared about most, to help us determine our funding priorities for the year. Voting took place online in English and Spanish between April 18th and May 6th, 2022. Voters were presented with five questions corresponding to the five LA2050 goal categories: connect, create, learn, live, and play. For each goal category, they selected the one or two issues that they felt were most significant and should be addressed through our grantmaking.

We were elated that more than 8,000 people responded to the call, together casting almost 60,000 total votes and shedding light on the issues that are top-of-mind for Angelenos.

Check out the final vote counts from this year's Grants Challenge:

The two top-voted issue areas in each goal category, indicated above in bold, became eligible for funding through this year’s Grants Challenge. Across all of the categories, the three issues with the most total votes were 1. Affordable housing and homelessness; 2. Green space, park access, and trees; and 3. Income inequality.

Grants Challenge voters represented an impressive 92 percent of Los Angeles County zip codes. The 16 neighborhoods with the most voters, in order, were:

1. Northeast LA
2. Mar Vista
3. Echo Park
4. South LA
5. Boyle Heights
6. Eagle Rock
7. Los Feliz
8. Palms
9. Culver City
10. Glendale
11. Elysian Park
12. Sylmar
13. West Adams
14. San Pedro
15. Koreatown
16. Mid-City

Thank you to all who voted in this year's Grants Challenge and helped us to demonstrate the power of community grantmaking. We'll announce the winning organizations in September, so stay tuned!