By Tony Brown and Alison Whalen
If you are reading this, there is a good chance your nervous system has been working overtime. The news cycle alone will do it. Between the war, the ICE raids, the fires… at some point, our sense of outrage calcifies into something more corrosive: cynicism. We feel it too. And, like you, we know that reposting something on Instagram won’t fix it.
But here is one thing that still does work.
In Los Angeles right now, there are more than 62,000 registered nonprofit organizations employing over 375,000 people: neighbors, parents, and community members who show up every day to address our city’s most tender pain points. Most are small organizations with deep roots and intimate knowledge of the communities they serve. They know which kids need tutoring, which families are falling through the cracks, and which grandmother doesn’t have any produce in her fridge.
More importantly, community-based organizations are among the few places left where people with genuinely different perspectives still come together to work toward a shared purpose. Not online. Not by shouting talking points at each other. By actually solving problems for actual people.
The nonprofit sector evolved, crisis by crisis, over decades. When government stepped back from direct social services in the 70s and 80s, community-based organizations stepped in. During the AIDS epidemic, after the unrest of 1992, through the 2008 recession, and during COVID, nonprofits became part of the connective tissue holding Los Angeles together.
We are still here. We have always been here. And right now, we especially need you. Because loneliness, distrust, food insecurity, mental health strain, and family instability are all rising, yet many of the institutions quietly holding communities together are being asked to do much more with much less. Need is increasing rapidly while devastating federal funding cuts accelerate. The safety net is fraying at the very moment people need it most.”
But we aren’t just asking you to help us. We are asking you to help yourself. What many people are experiencing right now is not just political exhaustion. It’s disconnection. Watching the world through a screen can create the illusion of participation while reinforcing helplessness. Real community work does the opposite. Something powerful happens when you stop doom-scrolling and instead spend time with people trying to materially improve someone else’s life. The paralysis starts to lift. You remember what agency feels like.
Maybe you’re already thinking of the reasons this sounds like a nice idea for someone else, but not for you. Let’s walk through those.
“I don’t trust charities.” Fair enough. Trust matters. But your local nonprofit is not an abstraction. You can walk into your neighborhood after-school program, food pantry, arts organization, or homeless services center and meet the people doing the work. You can ask questions. You can see outcomes firsthand. Trust does not have to be theoretical; it can be personal.
“I don’t have enough money to make a difference.” You do. One of the strongest financial assets a nonprofit can have is a large number of people giving a small amount consistently. A $25-a-month sustaining membership is reliable, flexible income organizations can actually plan around.
“I don’t have time.” There is not only one way to do this. Yes, joining a board or volunteering weekly can become a profound part of your life. But if what you can manage right now is assembling hygiene kits with your kids on a Saturday morning and dropping them off at a shelter, that counts too. The point is not perfection. The point is participation.
Here is what we believe after years of doing this work: human beings have a deep need to come together and live their values in community with others. We are not meant to process the state of the world alone, in the light of our phones, feeling helpless.
Community-based organizations are among the most vibrant and underappreciated institutions in our civic life. Not because they are perfect. Not because they can solve everything. But because they remind us that strong communities don’t happen by accident. We build them together.
So pick one organization near where you live. Visit it. Volunteer once. Give $25 a month. Bring your kids. Ask what they need. Stay involved long enough to know someone’s name.
It’s not glamorous. The work is real, non-linear, and the results sometimes take years to see. But Los Angeles is not held together by algorithms or outrage. It is held together every day by people who keep showing up for one another.
If you are exhausted by what the world feels like right now, don’t retreat from community. Move toward it.
Tony Brown and Alison Whalen are the CEO and Board Chair of Heart of Los Angeles, respectively. Founded in 1989, Heart of LA gives young people an equal chance to succeed through a comprehensive array of after-school academic, arts, and athletics programs.
