LOS ANGELES -- Angel City Football Club (ACFC) announced their philanthropic “Angel City Impact Fund,” an initiative focused on expanding their partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks in their joint commitment to increasing access to soccer for all regardless of income.
“The City is thrilled to expand our partnership with ACFC,” said Jimmy Kim, General Manager of the Department of Recreation and Parks. “This partnership represents a significant milestone forward toward our shared commitment to gender equity, and further builds on the City’s Girls Play LA Program which has been dedicated to breaking down barriers for girls in sports for the last 25 years.”
The non-profit will serve 7,000 Los Angeles youth annually for the next two years, aiming to provide low- and no-cost soccer opportunities in addition to leadership and coaching training. In year one the Impact Fund will co-host seasonal programs, camps and clinics across over 100 Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks sites. The goal for 2025 will be to recruit, train and hire at least 100 coaches representative of the diverse communities that Los Angeles is comprised of, targeting minority groups that are currently underrepresented in management roles.
Angel City FC has funneled 10% of its sponsorship revenue towards community initiatives since its inception in 2020, resulting in over $3.5 million invested into the lives of over 160,000 Angelenos. In 2024, Angel City FC was honored with the ESPY Award for Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year for those efforts.
"Our sponsorship model has been groundbreaking and in just three years, has established the club’s fierce commitment to making impact a pillar of our identity," said ACFC Head of Community and Marketing Catherine Dávila. "Now, with the launch of our own non-profit, we can amplify these efforts, empowering ACFC and our community to collectively expand our impact and drive systemic change in sports."
The Angel City Impact Fund continues that legacy of outreach without the use of corporate dollars to fund their programing. Instead, they are building a “Starting 11” of likeminded individuals to fuel the fund with a minimum donation of $10,000 to join. The current goal is to secure “a group of people who understand the mission of this fund and are brought in on helping us make this community led,” according to Catherine Dávila, the team’s head of community and marketing. One of the current members is former San Jose Earthquakes player, Justin Morrow.
They also plan to activate the ACFC community by encouraging them to take part in Angel City’s other programs, like their Artist in Residence Program with Las Fotos Project, to provide paid hands-on sports photography workforce development, and the SOAR Internship Program, that provides a paid internship to female and gender-expansive youth interested in further developing their leadership, communication and presentation skills.
