SoLa Foundation Is Betting That Culture Changes Everything

When I interviewed billionaire couple José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones last year, they spent a lot of time talking about the culture pillar of their philanthropy. “Culture changes hearts and minds,†Jones told me. “You can give money and donate and do various things, but that ultimately isn't what changes people's ideas. How you can touch someone with their heart or with their mind — different culture forms do that.â€

It was a philosophy that stuck with me and one that also animates the story of SoLa Foundation, the nonprofit arm of SoLa Impact, a family of social impact real estate funds focused on affordable housing in low-income communities in Los Angeles founded by entrepreneur Martin Muoto. (Fittingly, Feliciano and Jones help fund SoLa Impact.) Launched in 2018, the foundation aims to expand access to education and economic opportunity in L.A.'s underresourced communities. In just a few years, it has awarded over $2.2 million in scholarships, trained thousands of young people in college- and career-ready skills, and launched initiatives like the SoLa Tech & Entrepreneurship Center in partnership with Riot Games and Live Nation.

But what's perhaps most striking about SoLa's trajectory is who it has managed to bring into its orbit. The foundation has built an impressive board that taps directly into Hollywood, music and tech, with Grammy-winning songwriter and producer James Fauntleroy and Jade Iovine — daughter of record mogul Jimmy Iovine — among its members. I recently connected with SoLa Foundation Executive Director Sherri Francois, and later caught up with board members Fauntleroy and Rahshiene Taha to find out how the foundation has grown, why it believes culture is central to its model, and how a relatively young South L.A. organization has managed to punch so far above its weight.

The evolution of SoLa Foundation

L.A. native Sherri Francois spent years in broadcast journalism and documentary production before landing back in SoCal in the mid-2010s. When a mutual connection passed along job information about SoLa Impact, she almost didn't bite. “I read the deck, and I was like, I'm not interested,†she said with a laugh. But a sit-down with Muoto quickly turned the tables. She says she liked that he wasn't just looking to be a landlord, but seemed concerned about the broader community that SoLa Impact worked in.

As chief impact officer for Sola Impact, Francois spent time going around the community asking residents what they needed. One consistent piece of feedback she heard was that people wanted more opportunities for young people. Francois went on LegalZoom, registered what became known as the SoLa Foundation, and started learning the ins and outs of nonprofit management on the fly. 

What emerged over the next few years is an ecosystem of programs anchored by the SoLa Tech & Entrepreneurship Center, known as the Beehive, off Slauson and Central in South L.A. The center runs coding, media production, material science and engineering labs, culinary training, and an esports facility — all under one roof in a community that Francois describes as both a food and resource desert. 

Beehive has received over $2 million from Riot Games, the gaming company behind powerhouses like League of Legends and Valorant. Francois had already taken over the space for the fledgling center, which opened in 2022, and says Riot executives walked into the center one day and were excited to sign on. “More people watch the esports championships [globally] than the Super Bowl,†she said. “I knew that was an opportunity for workforce development also down the road.â€

SoLa Foundation also runs a scholarship program, awarding over $2 million to date, in amounts ranging from $10,000 to $12,000. It's a priority Francois takes personally, growing out of what she heard on her early neighborhood tours, and understanding the value of education in her own life, a fact that shapes how she thinks about access and what it actually takes to get there.

SoLa Impact itself commits 13% of its profits to the foundation, a number that came directly out of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, and nods to the 13th Amendment. The foundation has relied heavily on individual donors and corporate partners.

SoLa's philanthropic work exists alongside a more complicated record on the landlord side of the business. Public records show that some of SoLa's properties have been cited for code violations, which Muoto has attributed to the deteriorated condition of the buildings when acquired. But tenant advocacy groups and legal organizations have pushed back. SoLa Impact has been named in multiple lawsuits over labor relations and habitability, per the Los Angeles Times. According to a representative, “concerns raised in [the L.A. Times] have been addressed and resolved since the story was published (through increased maintenance work, active investment in the apartments and staffing, and more).â€

None of this criticism appears to have dampened SoLa Foundation's momentum, but it's a reminder that the corporate structures undergirding even the most mission-driven philanthropy are rarely without friction.

A big-ticket partnership draws in entertainment heavyweights

In December 2023, SoLa Foundation announced a partnership with live entertainment and ticketing giant Live Nation that would put it squarely on the philanthropic radar of some of the city's entertainment elite. The seeds of that connection date back to 2020 during the pandemic, when Oprah Winfrey was funding workforce relief support during COVID. The billionaire mogul wanted to meet Francois. “By the way, I've never been more nervous in my life,†Francois said. “Then she said, ‘mind if we do this again with some of my friends?'â€

That larger meeting was a who's who of media moguls: Oprah, Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. There was less interest in funding general scholarships, but a lot of interest around solving the pipeline problem of getting more youth of color on the path toward executive positions within the music industry. Live Nation committed to help build a program training young creatives of color for industry careers and eventually started placing students in coveted internships.

The partnership went to another level entirely when Live Nation committed to funding the buildout of a new, 9,000-square-foot AI and Entertainment Center on Crenshaw Boulevard, which opened this May. The center hosts the Live Nation Next Gen Program, an 18-week paid apprenticeship for youth ages 16 to 21 that culminates in students producing their own concert. Every week, a Live Nation executive speaks to the kids. “It wasn't just about a check,†Francois said. Nearly all students who complete the program now say they plan to pursue careers in the music industry. 

A Grammy winner from the community speaks

Before he was collaborating with Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, James Fauntleroy was a kid growing up at the height of the crack epidemic in South Central L.A. — the same streets where SoLa Foundation now works. That proximity and lived experience is exactly why Francois wanted him on the board.

Fauntleroy's philanthropic beginnings were shaped in part by his close friend Nipsey Hussle, the late L.A. rapper whose Marathon Clothing store and surrounding Crenshaw properties became a model for community-rooted entrepreneurship. He calls himself and Nipsey “two really hardened nerds†who would spend hours dreaming up institutions they could build within the neighborhood. Fauntleroy says the two were already talking about buying the surrounding strip mall and converting it into housing before Nipsey was slain in 2019.

But Fauntleroy also recalls the weight of not being fully understood, even among his own family. As a teenager, he was already fluent in HTML and had picked up BASIC and C++ books at a thrift shop, wandering around with coding manuals. “I needed somebody to see that I'm walking around with a coding book and be like, ‘let's go to Radio Shack or something,'†he said. “I remember coming home and being like, ‘Hey everybody, I won this, I won an HTML competition,' and it was like, ‘Man, get the out of here with the HTML thing.’â€

Fauntleroy eventually founded 1500 Sound Academy, a music school in Inglewood, and more recently, Creators Laboratory, an entrepreneurship hub at 4707 Crenshaw, just a few feet from SoLa's new Live Nation center.

His initial introduction to SoLa came through some community members. As soon as he walked in, little kid James, as he called his younger self, went crazy: The rows of computers, the 14-foot video wall and a green screen. He started quizzing the tech staff with obscure coding questions to test whether they actually knew their stuff — the same instinct he turned on me mid-conversation, pointing to the black-and-white poster of R. Buckminster Fuller looming over his shoulder and asking if I knew who it was.

He thinks SoLa and the Laboratory share a theory of change built on hands-on and sustained support, the kind of support he craved as a kid. “There's some people who could really be great contributors to society; they just need more hand-holding,†he said. “If I can facilitate [something]….  that makes someone believe they can be more than what they were told they can be, then job well done,†he said.

Another board member, and the road ahead

Harlem native and Stanford graduate Rahshiene Taha came to the SoLa board through Live Nation, where he headed up IP development and marketing partnerships for several years. Someone connected him to the program SoLa was running with Live Nation students, a course that culminated in the kids putting on an actual music festival, where he went to speak. He liked what he saw and eventually joined the board.

Taha hasn't forgotten where he came from. He's now at apparel and footwear company VF Corporation, working with the CEO on new business development across the Vans, Timberland and North Face portfolio. He says he brings all of that cultural knowledge into the room when he sits on SoLa's board. “I represent that community in every room that I walk into,†he told me. He listens to the same music the kids do and understands the brands they're wearing. That cultural fluency is just as important to SoLa's work as any corporate partnership he might broker.

And a broker he is. One example: A friend at Microsoft came to a SoLa gala and it led to Microsoft plugging in through its Black and Latino employee organizations.

On the question of younger donors and whether the next generation of culturally fluent, community-rooted givers is stepping up, Taha said, “You're in your 40s, and if you call that your earning generation, you're also in the sandwich generation,†he said. Taking care of parents, paying for kids' school, and saving for a house in a big city doesn't leave a lot of disposable income for philanthropy, even for people who care. But he sees that younger donors are keen on giving what they can now, which can escalate to a lot more later. 

Back at the Beehive, Francois is thinking about the next chapter, including the impact of AI on STEM fields. With the second tech center now open on Crenshaw, she believes SoLa is positioned to be at the forefront of a shift she compares to the industrial revolution — one where communities like South L.A. could, finally, be at the table rather than watching from outside it. “I truly believe that there's no time in our history where a community like ours could be positioned to be at the forefront of something that's changing the fabric of the country and the world,†she said.