Giving Nonprofits the Power of Information and Resources
During the COVID-19 pandemic, education advocate Kristina Brittenham was searching for free college counseling services for LAUSD students. Her friend and fellow education advocate Lindsay Weissert was searching for transportation for displaced schoolchildren in Tijuana. Finding the services vulnerable children need can take hours, or days; it can take emails, phone calls, and Zooms. At worst, searching can be fruitless; at best, it wastes valuable time. Kristina and Lindsay knew there had to be a better way.
Los Angeles is full of dedicated program managers, therapists, lawyers, social workers, doctors, educators, researchers, volunteers, and more at nonprofits dedicated to supporting vulnerable children. From the 18,000 foster youth in L.A. County to the estimated 3,400 unaccompanied minors who now reside here, the need has never been greater. Yet service providers have lacked an efficient way to connect, collaborate, and share resources and information across organizations. Blasting requests to mass email lists and sharing flyers in Zoom chats is not good enough.
The private sector has all the tech tools it needs; nonprofits deserve the same support. Kristina and Lindsay founded the Children’s Action Coalition to address this inequity, and now the better way to collaborate has arrived.
The Coalition Platform provides, at no cost to members, a private social network; a virtual space to share resources and information; tailored Discussion Groups organized around client type or service area; and online community events to discuss challenges nonprofit leaders face. Since launching in January of 2022, the Coalition has provided all of these services in a single online hub to members representing nearly 100 different organizations supporting children and families. Their members have found referrals and secured goods for clients in need; they have shared upcoming events and made new connections. The hardworking nonprofit leaders of L.A. know that children win when organizations can leverage each other’s strengths. The Coalition Platform cuts the red tape to make it easy.
As the hub for nonprofits, the Coalition will shine a light where services, funding, or volunteer support are critically needed for its members. It will investigate solutions with university-affiliated members, building deeper relationships between academia and community organizations. In short, the Coalition will be the hub not only for service providers, but for thinking about child welfare from the 10,000-foot view.
Children’s Action Coalition
Donate now!childrensactioncoalition.org
Co-Founder/CEO: Kristina Brittenham
Mission
Every child deserves to grow up in safety, and into opportunity. Community support is crucial for children experiencing adversity to become resilient, and local service providers already do the difficult work of supporting vulnerable children around the globe. They have proven track records of changing the lives of children, and they seek out opportunities to work together in order to better serve their communities. We founded the Children’s Action Coalition to build the infrastructure to support that work around the world.
Begin to Build a Relationship
We know you care about where your money goes and how it is used. Connect with this organization’s leadership in order to begin to build this important relationship. Your email will be sent directly to this organization’s director of development and/or Executive Director.
The Children’s Action Coalition has been an incredible partner. They have been able to provide an extremely helpful Platform to our Unaccompanied Minors’ Collaborative. Through this Platform, agencies like Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project can be actively connected with other sister organizations, share resources, and support each other. By building and maintaining this bridge for communication, the Coalition is providing a valuable resource to many public interest agencies.
Support Child Welfare by Building Connections
The Children’s Action Coalition is a nonprofit internet startup without internet startup funding; it has been funded and run thus far by its founders and dedicated volunteers. Funding is needed to sustain the Coalition Platform’s sophisticated technology and create the tech tools its members need. The Coalition also needs people power for outreach to grow its membership and actively support its members, with the goal of tripling the number of organizations represented in the next year. Funding the Coalition means giving a limitless number of nonprofits access to the infrastructure they need to take their work to the next level, together.