Magnolia Place

The Magnolia Community Initiative (MCI) is a ground-breaking model for large scale community mobilization and transformation. The MCI helps children, living in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, succeed educationally and thrive physically; and it helps their families thrive as nurturing and economically stable support systems.

MCI is a collaborative effort of over 70 faith-based and community groups in partnership with organizations and public agencies, dedicated to improving outcomes for children in a five-square mile (500 blocks) area crossing the Pico Union, West Adams and the North Figueroa Corridor neighborhoods just southwest of downtown Los Angeles. It unites the County, City and community to strengthen individual, family and neighborhood protective factors by increasing social connectedness, community mobilization, and access to needed supports and services. It goes beyond the traditional multi-service agency strategy and builds neighborhood resiliency and civic engagement.

The communities that MCI serves have 35,000 children and youth; 10,000 are under five-years old. Sixty-five percent of these children and youth live in poverty, 35 percent are obese, 40 percent enter kindergarten unprepared, and 40 percent will fail to graduate on time from high school. There is a high rate of child abuse, child neglect and spousal abuse in these communities.

Click here to read "Getting to Scale: The Elusive Goal," which reports on the MCI model along with its successes and challenges. 

Click here to read an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by John Kania and Mark Kramer titled "Collective Impact," about the model of broad cross-sector coordination as opposed to intervention that the MCI has embraced.