Our Legacy

The LA84 Foundation is the legacy of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The commitment of the LA84 Foundation transforms lives and communities through its support of youth sports programs. For 36 years the LA84 Foundation has created sports opportunities for young people in Southern California to promote the importance of sports in positive youth development. The LA84 Foundation is a nationally recognized leader in youth sport and public education.

It has supported thousands of organizations through grantmaking, while also commissioning research, convening conferences, acting as a national thought leader on important issues that face youth sports, and training coaches to increase their focus on using sports to promote life lessons.

The LA84 Foundation makes sport accessible to all children and elevates youth sports as an integral part of living an enriched life. The programs and grants to organizations that the LA84 Foundation have provided have impacted over 3 million youth and their families.

The LA84 Foundation is dedicated to innovation and expanding its work.

It seeks partners who share its collective goals of expanding youth sports opportunities; and improving the social, academic and health outcomes across communities through structured sports participation. The LA84 Foundation embraces diversity, equity and inclusion to broaden its impact across communities.

The Play Equity Fund was established by the LA84 Foundation as its 501(c)3 public charity partner.

The LA84 Foundation board was inspired by the data and statistics that indicate the lack of equal access to sports for kids is a crisis hidden in plain sight, and research shows the importance of sports and structured play in kid’s lives to promote lifelong well-being. This research shows clearly that equal access to sports is a social justice issue.

The importance of Play Equity to support kids and communities demands finding sustainable solutions. The LA84 Foundation has brought these issues to life for decades, and through its grantmaking and impactful programs such as Run For Fun, Summer Swim, as well as the LA84 Foundation’s legacy of active participation in building facilities, providing equipment, training coaches and many other initiatives across eight counties of Southern California.

This deep history of impactful work by the LA84 Foundation gives the Play Equity Movement additional authority and voice that can speak directly to this important moment in youth sports.

By establishing a charitable partner in the Play Equity Fund, the LA84 Foundation has launched a national movement focused on bringing the transformational power of sport to children regardless of their race, gender, zip code or socioeconomic status.

Since its founding, the LA84 Foundation has believed no child should be excluded from sports opportunities and thus begin a cycle of lower expectations, doubt and frustration.

Despite these efforts, over recent decades a gap between those who can participate and those who cannot has continued to grow. This is the Play Equity gap.

We are seizing this moment to make it otherwise.

The LA84 Foundation established the Play Equity Fund to level the playing field, and as advocates we work together to address these issues with all facets of our work.