GiveBetter x Los Angeles

Hunger Action Los Angeles

Nutrition incentives, food delivery, benefit access, organizing and education

Research time: 45 min on GPT-6 Astra Light
  • Research — reviewed programs, finances and impact evidence.

Updated: 2026-09-14

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Summary

What do they do? Hunger Action Los Angeles delivers produce incentives, food and benefit-access support while organizing against hunger. A conditional estimate prices the nutrition-health contribution of its largest incentive program at full recipient cost. Policy, benefit enrollment and food-delivery effects remain unpriced, so the component is not a portfolio ranking.

Why we’re interested in this organization:

  • The original return distinguishes redeemed incentive dollars from customer spending and transaction counts.

  • Market Match is the largest program, not a cherry-picked minor activity.

  • Randomized incentive evidence supports an actual dietary pathway beyond food-purchase outputs.

Our main reservations:

  • Local unique household exposure and measured health effects are unavailable.

  • Most documented incentive funding comes through public contracts, making donation substitution consequential.

  • The accounts are return-based, and unrecognized volunteer and food resources are incompletely valued.

What do you get for your dollar? $9.8M per better life: ten additional quality-adjusted life years in Los Angeles. Working judgment price for the Market Match nutrition health component, charging full recorded recipient cost. Other portfolio effects and unrecognized external resource costs remain unestimated; this is not a measured whole-portfolio or societal return..

$1,224,579 redeemed incentives / $240 per household-equivalent year =5102.4125 equivalents; after a=.5 and b=.25,637.8015625 incremental equivalents before geography.

1. What do they do?

HALA, EIN 20-5142259, combines direct service with education and organizing. Its current website includes Market Match, food delivery, CalFresh support and advocacy. The recipient scope includes all of these activities. The model prices only the Market Match nutrition-health component against the entire recipient expense; other pathways are unknown rather than worthless.

The original return identifies LA-area markets and county support. A 98% LA/Orange benefit share allows for shoppers living outside the boundary; it is not an address-based measurement. Benefits to farmers elsewhere in California are not added as local health gains.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

The 2024 return reports $1,224,579 of Market Match transactions across 39 markets, 67,183 transactions and 2,978 new customers. Transactions are not unique families. Customers' $1,631,637 of CalFresh spending is existing purchasing power and is not counted as an additional donation-created transfer.

The central model divides redeemed incentives by an assumed $240 per household-year of exposure, producing 5,102.4 household-equivalent years. That is a normalization, not a reported client count. Only one adult health trajectory per equivalent is included. The return separately reports $356,132 of WIC Plus/Senior Plus coupons and roughly 200 food-delivery households; these are not added without resolving overlap and exposure.

3. Qualitative assessment

The USDA Healthy Incentives Pilot randomized trial found approximately 0.24 additional daily cups of targeted fruit and vegetables from a 30% purchasing incentive. This supports a dietary mechanism, but does not establish QALYs, long-term disease prevention or HALA's causal effect. Farmers-market matching differs from the trial's retail design. The model uses a 50% transfer/additionality factor for diet change and alternative incentives.

A 0.005 QALY health gain per fully incremental household-equivalent year is explicitly subjective. It represents a small finite nutrition/health improvement, not a measured HIP result or a lifetime diet association. The positive stress cases use 0.0005 to 0.02; zero remains plausible. No benefit persists after the modeled year, no household-size multiplier is used, and no farmer-income or medical-cost savings are silently added.

Advocacy could matter more than this delivery component. HALA's January 2026 update documents ongoing safety-net advocacy, but policy implementation, coalition attribution and donation sensitivity are not quantified here. Historical funding wins belong in the baseline unless a new marginal protection effect is demonstrated.

4. What do you get for your dollar?

Original gross expenses were 2022 $1,511,795, 2023 $1,978,343 and 2024 $2,965,205. No separately netted event, rental or inventory cost was shown. The latest denominator retains all programs, administration and fundraising, including the $2,257,892 Market Match program expense; it is not replaced by redeemed coupons alone.

The 2023 and 2024 returns report reviewed or compiled statements rather than independent audits, and their Schedule D does not supply an audited-expense reconciliation. The 2022 return reports an audit; its Schedule D reconciles the same $1,511,795 expense without a donated-service adjustment. Volunteer food packing/delivery and donated food appear in the program narrative, but a complete unrecognized-resource valuation was not established. The displayed price is consequently full recorded recipient cost, not complete social-resource cost.

Central modeled health is 3.0342 LA QALYs, about $9.77 million per 10. Positive joint cases range from about $249,405 to $2.66 billion per 10, not confidence bounds. The strong case relies on both a larger health prior and much less substitution; it is not a demonstrated bargain.

Model, assumptions and sensitivity

Full recorded recipient gross expense; only Market Match nutrition health priced, unrecognized outside resources unknown. The full annual budget is a ratio normalization, not a requested donation or verified funding tranche. Applying the ratio to an ordinary small gift assumes locally proportional capacity response and the stated component allocation.

g=.98 subjective LA/Orange shopper-health share, not farmer-location attribution.

Q=(B/u)*a*b*q*g/1.03; B=1224579,u=240,a=.5,b=.25,q=.005,g=.98. Q=3.034201608. Price10=10*2965205/Q. Qportfolio=Q+Qother-H, Qother unknown.

C
2965205 USD annual recipient cost (observed). Full Part IX; no netted costs shown. [99024]
B
1224579 USD redeemed Market Match incentives (observed). Not total customer spending or all reported grants. [99024]
u
240 USD incentives per exposure-equivalent household-year (judgment). Normalization, not observed annual uptake; test120–480. [99024]
a
0.5 dietary transfer and alternative-incentive adjustment (judgment). HIP differs from local matching; test .2–.8. [hip]
b
0.25 proportional funding responsiveness (judgment). Public reimbursement and other-donor substitution; test .05–.75. [99024]
q
0.005 finite QALY per additional exposure-equivalent year (judgment). No observed local health utility; test0–.02; no lifetime benefit. Treat this as expected net first-year health area, inclusive of competing mortality, intervention burden and benefit fade within the year; it is not a utility level maintained for every survivor. [hip]
g
0.98 LA/Orange resident health share (judgment). Shopper geography not verified; test .9–1. [current]
d
0.03 one-year discount (judgment). No post-year persistence.
Qother
null remaining portfolio LA health (unknown). Policy, enrollment and food delivery unresolved. [current]

central: Cost: $3.0M; Los Angeles QALYs: 3.034201608009709; all-population QALYs: 3.0961240898058255. u=240;a=0.5;b=0.25;q=0.005;g=0.98; one year at 3% discount; subjective joint case, not confidence bound.

low: Cost: $3.0M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0.011146046723300971; all-population QALYs: 0.012384496359223302. u=480;a=0.2;b=0.05;q=0.0005;g=0.9; one year at 3% discount; subjective joint case, not confidence bound.

high: Cost: $3.0M; Los Angeles QALYs: 118.8911650485437; all-population QALYs: 118.8911650485437. u=120;a=0.8;b=0.75;q=0.02;g=1; one year at 3% discount; subjective joint case, not confidence bound.

No additional health: Cost: $3.0M; Los Angeles QALYs: 0; all-population QALYs: 0. b=0 or q=0.

Illustrative net harm: Cost: $3.0M; Los Angeles QALYs: -1; all-population QALYs: -1. One LA QALY net harm from displacement or burdens; not observed. This direct one-year local-harm stress assumes g=1 for the harmed population; it is not derived using the central geography fraction.

Whole portfolio unestimated: Cost: $3.0M; Los Angeles QALYs: unknown; all-population QALYs: unknown. Other effects not assumed zero.

Counterfactual: Other incentive programs, existing CalFresh purchases, public reimbursement and alternative food sources continue. a adjusts dietary transfer and replacement; b adjusts marginal funding response.

Attribution: Redeemed incentive dollars become exposure-equivalent household-years, not counted transactions. One adult trajectory per equivalent, finite one year. No lifetime or farmer-income health multiplication.

Health utility and funding response are judgment priors, not observed or empirically calibrated probabilities. Joint positive cases, zero and harm are all retained.

Sensitivity

  • Central $9,772,603.75/10; favorable $249,404.99; weak $2,660,319,908.58.
  • Halving health effect or funding response doubles price.
  • Add unrecognized volunteer/food and outside administration costs for social-resource sensitivity.
  • Historic redemptions are a scale anchor, not proof of current contract renewal.

Unresolved inputs

  • Unique households and annual incentive exposure.
  • Incremental diet and finite health utility versus alternatives.
  • Current public contracts and unrestricted funding response.
  • Complete donated-food/volunteer value.
  • Non-overlapping advocacy and benefit-access health.

5. Funding and previous grants

Of the 2024 Market Match redemptions, $805,512 came through Ecology Center state/federal invoices and $419,067 through county ARPA funding administered by Food Access LA. The return explicitly distinguishes those streams. A private donation might protect capacity, cover an ineligible cost or replace reimbursement; no automatic matching leverage is assumed. The central 25% proportional funding response is a judgment.

Cash was $81,479, receivables were substantial, and net assets were $270,949 at year end. Schedule L reports a $10,000 remaining officer bridge loan from an original $20,000, with no written agreement or board approval indicated. This is a governance and liquidity fact, not proof of misconduct.

The 2024 EBT fruit-and-vegetable pilot ended HALA participation in April and is not counted as ongoing capacity. Current program terms and public renewals should be confirmed before treating historical scale as a marginal gift opportunity. At the annual denominator, $1 million per 10 requires 29.65205 net LA QALYs and $100,000 per 10 requires 296.5205. No outreach or donation was made.

Annual expenses

Organization-level spending, including programs, administration and fundraising. The research list averages three comparable, consecutive full fiscal years when available.

  • FY 2022: $1.5M; Hunger Action Los Angeles, EIN 20-5142259, 12-month period, Calendar-year accrual Form 990 gross recognized expense; no separately netted activity addback shown. Audit reported in 2022; review/compilation in 2023–24. Unrecognized resources are not fully valued.. Source
  • FY 2023: $2.0M; Hunger Action Los Angeles, EIN 20-5142259, 12-month period, Calendar-year accrual Form 990 gross recognized expense; no separately netted activity addback shown. Audit reported in 2022; review/compilation in 2023–24. Unrecognized resources are not fully valued.. Source
  • FY 2024: $3.0M; Hunger Action Los Angeles, EIN 20-5142259, 12-month period, Calendar-year accrual Form 990 gross recognized expense; no separately netted activity addback shown. Audit reported in 2022; review/compilation in 2023–24. Unrecognized resources are not fully valued.. Source

6. Sources

  1. Original 2024 return. HALA / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  2. Original 2023 return. HALA / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  3. Original 2022 return. HALA / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  4. 2024 Schedule D. HALA / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  5. 2024 officer bridge loan disclosure. HALA / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  6. Current recipient scope. HALA. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  7. January 2026 advocacy update. HALA. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  8. Original Healthy Incentives Pilot randomized evaluation. Olsho and colleagues / American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  9. Official-site-linked giving route. HALA. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.
  10. Original 2022 Schedule D expense reconciliation. HALA / IRS. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-09-14.