With a staff of only four full-time employees, along with some contractors and interns, the Goldhirsh Foundation is making incredible strides to work toward its mission of supporting personal innovation in Los Angeles.
President Tara Roth, 42, oversees management of the company’s endowments, investments and programs as well as marketing and communications efforts.
“[LA 2050] is our largest initiative about the future of Los Angeles,” she stated.
Roth first started her career in the Silicon Valley Company, conducting business with their partnerships before even being a part of the Goldhirsh Foundation. She also made sure to honor her volunteer commitments.
“I always wanted to do something that had a social mission for the world,” Roth said, “but I also wanted to do something professionally that was in a very, sort of, business-type environment.” However, this did not seem to be a viable option to her when she first graduated college.
Roth shared that she suffered a life-threatening illness in her late 20s that caused her to re-evaluate her life’s goals.
Roth was a part of various pioneering organizations, including Participant Media and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation.
“I feel like I’m now doing my life’s work and my values are aligned with the way I spend my days,” she stated.
The Goldhirsh Foundation now has two main areas of work. For one, the Foundation itself, this acts as a type of holding company. Individuals reach out to them for funding of all different projects and ideas, and they go out and find budding entrepreneurs and try to build organizations around them for support.
On the other side, they have nonprofits and everyday citizens interested in getting involved and investing in a better future for Los Angeles.
Overall, the hope is that the Goldhirsh Foundation helps to transform Los Angeles into a “global model for social innovation and entrepreneurship,” Roth said. “[I’d like to see] tackling very large social problems and … impact within those problems.”
Hot topics that Roth said she’d like to focus on include climate change, income discrepancies, and high school graduation rates, amongst others.
Recently, Roth participated in the SoGal Summit Conference, which took place in Los Angeles, by speaking at an event panel. The panel was entitled “You Have An Idea, What Next?” and was focused on knowing when and how to engage the assistance of mentors and advisors in business, and how to grow in that field.
Roth was happy to see the conference as an entrepreneurial spirit with women standing together to make the world a better place for females in business.
More information about the Goldhirsh Foundation can be found at goldhirshfoundation.org.
Steph Elizondo is an intern at Lioness. The 21-year-old Western New England University (WNEU) junior is an English-Literature major. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine at WNEU, as well as a staff writer for the school’s newspaper. She enjoys writing stories and poetry creatively, as well as essays and articles professionally. She hopes to become a professional writer and editor.
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