From Our President & CEO, John Kim
As I look back on 2024, it’s clear to me that it was a year of transition—the ground was shifting under our collective feet, and as we emerge fully from the pandemic, the extent of these disruptions is coming into sharp focus.
Despite a booming economy for the elite, government has preached austerity and pulled back from historic investments in climate change, education, and racial equity conversations. In an election year, public officials scrambled to position themselves and their agencies in anticipation of new leadership and priorities.
Within the nonprofit sector, the ground also shifted significantly. 2024 saw a generational change among some of the state’s top foundation leaders. Similarly, many nonprofit advocacy leaders left their posts, opening up opportunities for a new generation to step into leadership. This arrival of new voices and perspectives is positive, of course, but it also means that bonds of trust and partnership must be built.
All while we are simultaneously preparing for and now responding to massive changes in the political landscape nationally and, in Southern California, dealing with the horrific destruction of the January firestorms.
2025 is a time of rebuilding in all the meanings of the word. At Catalyst California, we are dedicated to that goal, bringing our proven strategies to what feels like a new world—action research to inform advocacy, challenging and shifting public policy paradigms, and serving as a bridge between community leaders and those in power, and vice versa. And we are helping build new formations to confront the new realities—you’ll want to check out We Are California!
This annual impact report is a great summary of our work in 2024—I hope you enjoy it. We have stories about policy and advocacy victories, our partners and supporters, and financials from our last audit.
Our work is made possible because of the trust you put in us. We’re committed to earning that trust well into the future. I’m glad you’re part of Catalyst California!
OUR IMPACT IN 2024
EDUCATIONAL EQUITY
- We continued advocacy on rate reform and the true cost of care for childcare providers. This includes the development of an alternative methodology process to better compensate childcare providers. The process also includes supports for Dual Language Learner (DLL) children and family engagement. This process will help the state better understand the costs incurred by providers and programs to provide services and help estimate the cost of care for different types of programs using variables such as program size, geographic locations, and the ages of children served.
- Successfully hosted a two-part webinar series, “Reparations as an Early Childhood Issue,” with the Whole Child Equity Partnership and key leaders in the reparations movement. These webinars served to uplift the need to explicitly include support for Black babies in the recommendations for reparations and explained the importance of their inclusion in reparations discussions and plans moving forward.
- Created collaborative spaces to advance language and linguistic equity in our advocacy for DLLs. This included “lunch and learns” on Asian American and Pacific Islanders and Black children, Black Advisory Group Listening Sessions, and listening sessions with families who speak Vietnamese, Spanish, Khmer, Chinese, Punjabi, Persian, and Russian.
- Released the policy platform for the Equity Alliance for LA’s Kids alongside the 10-year anniversary of the Student Equity Need Index. Developed through extensive input from two youth and parent convenings, a partner convening, and student surveys, the policy platform embodies our vision for the education we want to see in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
Equity in Community Investments
- Trained nearly 500 participants through a virtual, multi-session Funding Racial Justice program designed to unpack local budget basics through a racial equity lens. In partnership with the California Budget & Policy Center and the Million Voters Project, we co-launched the statewide Budget Power Project, providing 23 local grassroots organizations with budget trainings, narrative workshops, and research and coaching support.
- Conducted a one-day, in-person training with approximately 600 participants, focusing on key budget demands with air quality mitigation efforts affecting Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities. We co-developed a Funding Climate and Racial Justice curriculum with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice and Congregations for Organized Prophetic Engagement in the Inland Empire.
- Co-developed and launched the LA City Equity Index with the support of our Research and Data Analysis team and the Make LA Whole coalition. The equity index is a geographic quantitative tool that estimates areas especially impacted by systemic racial disparities. Its goal is to promote positive outcomes and opportunities so that communities of color can thrive. This tool aims to address blindspots in previous indices, offering a promising step forward.
Political Voice
- Secured victory for Measures DD and LL on the November 2024 ballot, giving important decision-making power to community members across Los Angeles and taking that power out of the hands of politicians. These measures enable changes to the City Charter, establishing Independent Redistricting Commissions in the City of LA and LAUSD. It allows community residents to draw boundaries based on input from the public during the redistricting process that happens every 10 years. OUR LA—a coalition of community-based organizations and racial justice advocates formed in response to the 2022 LA City Council audio tapes scandal—played a pivotal role in the passage of these measures.
- Helped pass the creation of a new, citizen-led Los Angeles City Charter Commission to look at expanding the size of the city council, reducing the number of council meetings, and making other changes to city operations. The 13-member commission will be charged with developing proposals for the November 2026 ballot that would revise the city charter that outlines the powers and responsibilities of city departments, offices, and elected officials.
- Championed a racial equity approach and informed the creation of the Governance Reform Task Force, a central part of LA County’s Measure G. Since its passage last November, we have been working to ensure that the significant changes it introduces are informed by and meet the needs of historically underserved communities.
- As a precursor to a campaign to reduce the influence of big money in local elections in Orange County, we launched a new partnership with Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development and California Common Cause to study the benefits of campaign finance reform in the region.
Reimagine Justice & Safety
- Released End Gang Profiling in Southeast San Diego: Data and Stories from Community Members. At the heart of this digital interactive report lies an in-depth analysis of the San Diego Police Department’s (SDPD) patrol activities through stop data and video interviews with community members from Southeast San Diego. The findings reveal a harrowing portrait of injustice: SDPD is committed to a practice of criminalizing Black and Latinx residents in Southeast San Diego by profiling them as gang members. This inflicts physical, mental, and emotional trauma on community members, undermines safety, and wastes millions of public dollars each year.
- As part of PUSH LA Coalition, we successfully organized and advocated for the Los Angeles City Council to pass a motion directing local agencies to assess the feasibility of implementing policies that would end racially biased traffic stops, limit traffic tickets and fines, make streets safer, and replace gun carrying traffic officers with an unarmed, care-based response.
Office of Strategic Initiatives
- Released the 2024 Bold Vision Mid-Year Report, which highlights the destructive inequities that keep youth from living up to their full potential and offers a roadmap for the social justice movement to focus on programs that benefit youth. The data found in the report can stir Los Angeles’ policymakers to action and help them create a better future.
- Released a spotlight on inequities plaguing Los Angeles County through RACE COUNTS, our initiative that uses race as a primary lens to understand inequity in California. For the first time, we highlighted law enforcement traffic stops, following the California Department of Justice’s release of this information. It showed that LA County police agencies stop Black drivers more than three times as often as White drivers, and those stops make up nearly a fifth of all traffic stops.
SUPPORTER SPOTLIGHTS
Pastor Eddie Anderson
CEO, Partnership for Growth
LA Voice Action Board Member
“Catalyst California has been instrumental in providing research and deepening our understanding of the California justice system. Their expertise in leveraging data and conducting district-by-district analyses of policing in the City of Los Angeles has been invaluable in making the case for police reform. We are able to push for and shape policy crafted with a racial equity lens thanks to Catalyst.
The successful passage of Measures DD and LL, which established Independent Redistricting Commissions for the City of LA and LAUSD, would not have been possible this year without Catalyst California’s leadership. By forming the OUR LA Coalition, Catalyst ensured that city governance would be placed back in the hands of voters, not elected officials.
Thank you so much for the leadership and partnership, Catalyst California!”
Chris Ringewald
Senior Director of Research & Data Analysis,
Catalyst California
“Before working at Catalyst California, I didn’t understand that a nonprofit must set and raise funds for a new budget every year and that monies from grants, contracts, and donations often arrive at times that are difficult to predict. Recurring donations give the organization a bit of stability amongst that unpredictability.
I already give the most important resource—time—to further Catalyst California’s mission, so it makes sense for me to donate a relatively lesser resource (money) to supplement it.
Catalyst California has accomplished so much in the last 25 years; I’m very proud to have been a part of that. I’m also very proud of how I/we have been impactful. We’ve consistently been an organization that collaborates with others, builds capacity in others, and innovates with others in search of greater equity. We see ourselves as part of a movement and are more likely to fundraise for our partners than compete against them for dollars or policy wins.”
2023 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
