Students distribute L.A. Guide to Giving

“With extreme poverty and malnutrition in every corner of the world, it is often hard to recognize the needs of your own community,” writes Elizabeth Knight in a profile of Hope-Net, a Los Angeles charity whose food and shelter services are described as the “saving grace each month” for many hungry and homeless people.

The brief sketch by Knight, a recent graduate of the Marlborough School, is one of 50 profiles of nonprofit organizations released this week in the L.A. Guide to Giving, a publication created by and for students to encourage philanthropy.

The guide is being distributed for free to schools, libraries, restaurants, banks and other merchants and will appear as an insert in local newspapers. It is a creation of YouthGive, a Bay Area-based organization of social entrepreneurs on a mission to enable young people and their families to engage and improve their community and the world.

“In these tough economic times, it’s especially important that young people and their families have a way to reach out and support nonprofits that may also be having a tough time financially,” said YouthGive co-founder Dan Siegel. “We’re trying to lower the threshold for giving so that young people can be philanthropists. This is a way to democratize giving.”

Part of YouthGive’s program includes a website where families can open a “giving account” for students to donate to nonprofits featured in the Guide to Giving as well as support other charitable groups around the world.

The accounts can start with as little as $1 and provide a secure forum for young people to contribute some of their allowance, savings, gifts and earnings, said Siegel.

While YouthGive has produced philanthropic guides for Marin County and Concord, Mass., the Los Angeles guide is the first large city the group has taken on.

It was created by 125 third- to 12th-grade students from 12 public, private and charter schools who formed teams to identify and interview nonprofit agencies and write short profiles of each group. A team of students edited the submissions.

The nonprofits profiled include such groups as the Harmony Project, which provides music lessons to needy children in Los Angeles, and Taking The Reins, which teaches life skills to at-risk urban adolescent girls through equestrian activities. Also included are well-known agencies such as the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

Amanda Chan, 17, a Marlborough senior, decided to profile The Q Fund — dedicated to caring for children affected by disease and natural disaster in Africa and Asia — after interviewing founder Chellie Kew for her school.

Chan had previously been involved with charitable groups such as Los Angeles-based Para Los Ninos, but working on the guide helped expose her to groups she otherwise would never have known about, she said.

“It appeals to a lot of different interests and opened up a lot of new nonprofits to my knowledge,” said Chan, who also helped edit the guide.

She is heartened that classmates seem to be taking the guide seriously.

“We distributed the guide today at Marlborough, and I felt really good seeing people actually reading it,” she said. “I heard people saying, ‘Look at this nonprofit, I’d be interested in helping.’ I think especially now during the holidays, it’s got to be really helpful.”

-- Carla Rivera