The Story of Our Name

Our founder Steve Barr pored over maps of the Los Angeles area and marked community sites with colored stickers to indicate levels of internet connectivity. Those with broad and reliable access to the internet were marked with green dots; those without access were marked with red dots. As the map filled with colored dots – indicating, in many cases, the viability of libraries, community centers, and schools – a stark pattern emerged. The core of the city of Los Angeles was red and it transitioned to a green suburbia. It was a stark visual representation of the geographic inequity in resources and opportunities.

Steve Barr focused on the red dots; recognizing them as communities rich with an untapped potential that were largely disconnected from the city’s broader network of opportunity. This powerful visual of the green- and red-dotted map led Steve to imagine empowering communities by seeding small, personalized community schools in the city’s most neglected neighborhoods.

Green Dot was founded with the express purpose of creating pathways to  opportunity through a high quality and free education; to plug historically underserved communities into the city’s social and economic power grid; and to level the playing field by transforming those red dots to green dots.

Since our founding 20 years ago, several leaders have been at Green Dot’s helm, helping further our mission, as we have grown in impact and scale, now serving approximately 15,000 students with 18 schools in Los Angeles, 5 in Memphis, and 1 in Southeast Texas.