For over fifteen years, the City of Los Angeles Combined Charitable Campaign has pooled the efforts of many of the most respected and successful charitable agencies in Los Angeles into a single City employee fundraising endeavor. Our goal is to improve the quality of life for all people in all communities of this great city.

The ten Charitable Agencies that participate in the Give to LA campaign raise funds for over 400 member charities that offer a variety of programs assisting everyone from the newborn to the elderly. Those member charities fund needed social services, health care programs, environmental programs and provide scholarships. Those charities and their programs affect your communities, your neighbors and perhaps you and your family.

Every year you are offered the opportunity to contribute to making Los Angeles and the surrounding communities a better place for everyone. The Give to LA Combined Charitable Campaign provides a convenient and efficient opportunity, for City employees, to give to the charity of their choice through one-time gifts or payroll deduction.

Dear Friends: Los Angeles is a great place to call home. Here, we live in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country in the world. And yet, at the same time, the gnawing gap between the rich and the poor is growing by the day.

While many of us cannot imagine our day without cell phones or computers, there are too many in this city who cannot imagine what it would be like to wake up with a roof over their head or a breakfast to eat.

Los Angeles stands for community and caring. When we see our neighbors struggling beside us, it is our nature to lend a helping hand.

As the City of Los Angeles Combined Charitable Campaign kicks off, I ask you all to join me in giving back to our city. I ask you to give to the student who needs help to pay for college and build a successful future. I ask you to give to help your neighbor on the street who hasn’t enough to eat. I ask you to give to help the countless families who do not have health care. Our campaign funds several hundred individual charities that give to LA.

Antonio R. Villaraigosa,
Mayor

Dear Colleagues,

Our Give to LA campaign includes a charity that has affected the life and well being of someone you know. Among the ten most respected and effective charitable agencies in the Give to LA Campaign, you have outstanding and diverse choices of what programs and charities to support. Your donations fund environmental charities, social programs, healthcare charities, scholarships and educational programs. Your generous giving, in the past, has benefited thousands of your fellow citizens and your donations in 2008-09 will help the over 400 charities continue their good works.

Give to LA is the official City of Los Angeles Combined Charitable Campaign. Mayor Villarigosa, the City Council and all the Department General Managers are strong supporters of this campaign and urge you to contribute. As City employees, we have good jobs, and are fortunate to be able to give back to those who are less fortunate than us.

You can donate with a one-time gift, or you can choose the convenience of payroll giving. Ask your department Coordinator for a Payroll Giving Form or download one here at www.GivetoLA.org.

Please join us in making this year’s campaign another major success. Thank you for Giving to LA!

Respectfully,

Ernesto Cardenas
Commissioner
Board of Public Works