Jennifer Dec 12, 2024 News

Angel City Football Club (ACFC) today announced its founding investor collective in “Angel City Impact,” a non-profit initiative powered by the community that is ambitiously aimed at driving generational change with large-scale youth sports programming and an innovative impact model.

ACFC was a first mover in 2020 when it came to establishing the model of collective investment in women’s sports, bringing in a unique mix of individuals who shared a common mission: to drive meaningful equity and change in women’s sports. The social impact project of Angel City will replicate that approach, working directly with a community-led founding investor group to drive the best outcomes for the community.

The fund is not soliciting donations from corporations, but is instead bringing together individual donors to create a powerful, community-driven movement that invests in social impact the way we invest in businesses. To date, the Angel City Impact Founding Investor Collective includes nearly 40 individual donors including actors America Ferrera, Uzo Aduba, and Abbi Jacobson, activists and former football stars Kaiya McCullough, Sinead Farrelly, Stuart Holden, and Justin Morrow, and Beyond Yoga co-founder Michelle Wahler.

Ferrera shared: “When I first joined Angel City FC, it was because they dared to defy the norms of women’s sports. For me, it was never just an investment in a sports team – but the opportunity to join a passionate founding investor group who all had a common mission to drive change on and off the field. Through Angel City Impact, we’re creating a powerful, community-driven movement that invests in social impact the way we invest in businesses. Through this, I hope to help overcome the challenges faced by young girls and gender-expansive youth in the soccer ecosystem who can’t afford the access they deserve.”

Since its inception, ACFC’s innovative sponsorship model has allocated 10% of all sponsorship revenue to community initiatives and programs. This has put more than $3.5 million directly into the Los Angeles community, impacting nearly 160,000 Angelenos, and garnering an ESPY Award for Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year in 2024.

In establishing Angel City Impact, ACFC will significantly expand the scope of its impact through a collective giving model that invites the community to inform and invest in flagship initiatives.

“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 Angel City Impact, we move into the next phase of this work with a new founding collective of investors who represent LA, and are committed to amplifying our mission and the communities we serve.”

Angel City Impact’s inaugural initiative will be expanding ACFC’s community partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks with the goal of overcoming the significant challenges young girls and gender-expansive youth face in the soccer ecosystem across the region. Over the next two years, the planned initiatives will collectively serve over 14,000 youth across Los Angeles, providing no-cost and low-cost access to soccer, leadership training, and a robust coaching pipeline.

In the Angel City Impacts first two years, flagship initiatives aim to:

Launch expanded no-cost soccer programming for 14,000 girls and gender-expansive youth annually, ages 5-17, across more than 100 Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks sites, including seasonal programs, camps, and clinics.

Expand the ACFC Coach Network to recruit, train, and hire a minimum of 150 coaches who are representative of the communities in which they’re working.