Amy Balkin

Amy Balkin 2010 Fellow Amy Balkin is a cross-disciplinary artist working in San Francisco.  Using a high level of research and social critique, Amy initiates critical conversations about the modern world in which we exist.  Her recent projects include Public Smog, Invisible-5 and This is the Public Domain. Public Smogis a park in the atmosphere that fluctuates in location and scale. The park is constructed through financial, legal, or political activities that open it for public use. Activities to create the park have included purchasing and retiring emission offsets in regulated emissions markets and making them inaccessible to polluting industries.When Public Smog is built through this process, it exists in the unfixed public airspace above the region where offsets are purchased and withheld from use. The park’s size varies, reflecting the amount of emissions allowances purchased and the length of contract, compounded by seasonal fluctuations in air quality.  Public Smog opened over California's South Coast Air Quality Management District in 2004, and over the European Union in 2007. Other activities to create Public Smog impact the size, location, and duration of the park. These activities include an attempt to submit Earth’s atmosphere for inscription on UNESCO's World Heritage List. tomorrowmorning.net publicsmog.org

Center for Creative Land Recycling

Center for Creative Land Recycling
2012 - $5,000 San Francisco Blue Greenway Project
2010 - $5,000 San Francisco Blue Greenway Project

Darrin Nordahl

Darrin Nordahl 2010 Fellow Darrin Nordahl is speaker and writer on issues of food and city design.  He has taught in the City and Regional Planning Department at UC Berkeley and in the Landscape Architecture program at UC Berkeley Extension.Nordhal currently resides in Davenport, Iowa, a once Agricultural Rust Belt city now poised to redefine urbanism in the Midwest.  His book Public Produce (Island Press, 2009) showcases how innovative urban food concepts can add vitality to city spaces. He believes that good city design can change behavior for the betterment of the individual and society.Other books by Nordahl include: My Kind of Transit: Rethinking Public Transportation (Island Press, 2009) and Making Transit Fun!: How to Entice Motorists from their Cars (Island Press, 2012). darrinnordahl.com

Free Farm Stand

Free Farm Stand
2010 - $3,000 General Support

The Free Farm Stand, an all-volunteer run project facilitates sharing the wealth of urban farms and gardens. This includes helping make locally grown, fresh and nutritious organic produce accessible to all (especially those families and individuals on low-incomes and tight budgets), empowering people who have the space to grow their own food and become more self-reliant and promoting good nutrition and health.Located in the Mission district, the Free Farm Stand gathers surplus food from neighborhood gardens, various farmer’s markets, community gardens, public and private fruit trees and provides the space where this bounty can be shared.The stand also acts as a gathering place to encourage community growth and involvement. In 2010, the Free Farm Stand, along with a small constellation of non-profit organizations in San Francisco, founded The Free Farm. Located on a 1/3-acre parcel loaned by St. Paulus Lutheran Church, The Free Farm has grown and given away over 1,000 pounds of fresh organic produce, convened gardening and urban homesteading workshops, and hosted community, school, and religious groups.

freefarmstand.org

Friends of Potrero Nursery School

Friends of Potrero Nursery School
2013 - $8,000 Urban Garden
2010 - $5,000 Capital Campaign

The Friends of Potrero Hill Nursery School (FOPHNS) is a much-loved preschool that has served San Francisco families for 12 years. In that time over 200 children have begun school in its caring and delightful atmosphere with an emphasis and a reverance for nature.  Creating environmentalists from the start, children are engaged in a seasonal cycle of activities in their small garden and throughout the neighborhood, drawing the children’s attention to the natural world around them.Capital Campaign
The capital campaign raised funds to build a permanent home for FOPHNS and a new Family Center on the grounds of the oldest public schoolhouse in San Francisco. The San Francisco Unified School District has leased to FOPHNS two outbuildings for a token amount, with the understanding that Friends will reuse them to better the community. This opportunity will not only provide long-term security for the school, but will also transform the I.M. Scott site and its two abandoned buildings into vibrant community assets: a Preschool and a Family Center. This project models a new form of green community center - a place where the nurturing of children is understood to be at the heart of creating a healthy society.

Urban Garden
To complement the completed main building, this second phase of the project creates a garden and play space that will surround a small family center.  The garden is a fascinating place for young children, full of the drama of birds and bugs  and worms as well as the processes of growth and decay. Caring for plants allows children to become closely acquainted with these and other living organisms. This sparks curiosity and empowers children to learn more about their natural surroundings.

fophns.com

Fritz Haeg

Fritz Haeg 2010 Fellow Artist Fritz Haeg's work has included edible gardens, public dances, educational environments, animal archtecture, domestic gatherings, urban parades, temporary encampments, documentary videos, publications, exhibitions, websites and buildings. His work includes the urban ecology initiatives of Edible Estates and Animal Estates; the domestic social activities of Sundown Salon and Sundown Schoolhouse; and the designs and scores of Fritz Haeg Studio. Edible Estates is an ongoing initiative to create a series of regional prototype gardens that replace domestic front lawns and other unused spaces in front of homes with places for families to grow their own food. The eight gardens have been established in cities across the United States and England. Adventurous residents in each town have offered their front lawns as working prototypes for their regions. Each of these highly productive gardens is very different, designed to respond to the unique characteristics of the site, the needs and desires of the owner, the community and its history, and, especially, the local climate and geography. With the modest gesture of reconsidering the use of our small, individual, private front yards, the Edible Estates project invites us to reconsider our relationships with our neighbors, the sources of our food, and our connections to the natural environment immediately outside our front doors. fritzhaeg.com

Futurefarmers/Amy Franceschini

Futurefarmers/Amy Franceschini
2020 - $10,000 FogHouse Project
2017 - $15,000 Seed Journey
2010 - $5,000 Free Soil: Farming 2050 Publication
2007 - $10,000 Victory Garden Project

Amy Franceschini is a pollinator who creates formats for exchange and production that question and challenge the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround her. In 1995, Amy founded Futurefarmers, an international collective of artists. In 2004, Amy co-founded Free Soil, an international collective of artists, activists, researchers, and gardeners who work together to propose alternatives to the social, political and environmental organization of space.Victory Gardens
Victory Gardens 2007+ calls for a more active role for cities in shaping agricultural and food policy. It is a concept in development with the city of San Francisco that would provide a subsidized home gardening program for individuals and neighborhoods.  This program offers tools, training & materials for urban dwellers to participate in a city-wide transformation of underutilized backyards— turning them into productive growing spaces. The project draws from the historical model of the 1940's American Victory Garden program to provide a basis for developing urban agriculture as a viable form of sustainable food practice in the city.

Farming 2050
The first issue of the annual journal Free Soil, FARMING 2050, documents a one-day experiment where eleven artists, farmers, writers, policy makers, architects and philosophers were invited to imagine farming in 2050. What will it look like and how will we get there? What materialized was a range of apprehensions, evaluations and revelatory combinations of fact and fiction that offer a diverse look on the future of farming. This hyper-local portrait of critical, San Francisco voices reflects a sense of optimism intertwined with serious demands to re-evaluate the current logic that dominates our food system.

futurefarmers.com

Greywater Action

Greywater Action
2010 - $2,000 General Support

Greywater Action is a collaborative group of educators, designers, builders and artists who educate and empower people to build sustainable water culture and infrastructure. Their teaching tools include interactive models of composting toilets and greywater systems and design/installation workshops. Through hands on workshops and presentations, Greywater Action has educated hundreds of people about the process of greywater system design and construction, and built greywater systems at dozens of houses in cities in California and beyond.

greywateraction.org

Growing Power

Growing Power 2010 - $2,000 Educational Outreach Growing Power is a national nonprofit organization and land trust based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  They support people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food.  Growing Power implements this mission by providing hands-on training, demonstrations, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner.Since its inception, Growing Power has served as a ”living museum” or “idea factory” for the young, the elderly, farmers, producers, and other professionals ranging from USDA personnel to urban planners.  Training areas include the following: acid-digestion, anaerobic digestion for food waste, bio-phyto remediation and soil health, aquaculture closed-loop systems, vermiculture, small and large scale composting, urban agriculture, permaculture, food distribution, marketing, value-added product development, youth education, community engagement, participatory leadership development, and project planning. growingpower.org

Linden Living Alley

Linden Living Alley
2010 - $10,000 General Support

Linden Living Alley is a neighborhood initiative that transformed a section of Linden Street in Hayes Valley into San Francisco’s first modern ‘shared space’ street. Shared spaces soften the segregation of roadway and sidewalk to create safe, low-speed environments where walking, cycling, and automobile access coexist with greenery and space for socializing and play.

The project tabled the street to the level of the sidewalk, added trees and planted areas, along with seating and traffic calming.Linden Living Alley’s team, which included architect David Winslow, Loring Sagan and his colleagues from Build, Inc, and Meredith Thomas and her colleagues from the San Francisco Parks Alliance, spent many years working with City staff and disability advocates to develop the design to preserve accessibility while staying true to the shared space vision. Linden Living Alley opened October 2010. It serves as a model for shared spaces in San Francisco and opens the door for future alleyway beautification and greening.

photo credit: Lucy Goodhart

lindenlivingalley.wordpress.com

Little City Gardens

Little City Gardens
2010 - $2,500 Zoning Code Advocacy Work

Little City Gardens is an experiment in the economic viability of small-scale urban market-gardening. Located on a three quarter of an acre plot in San Francisco, they have been working steadily towards crafting a way for urban food production to sustain a farm economically and build community through innovative, collaborative local food systems.  This process will allow the establishment of the ‘urban farmer’ as a career.

Little City Gardens is currently a small salad greens business, an educational site, and a working model of food production in San Francisco. Advocacy work done by the founders of Little City Gardens, Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway, was crucial for the 2011 changes in San Francisco zoning code that now allows for and encourages urban agriculture.

littlecitygardens.com

Nature in the City

Nature in the City
2021 - $15,000 Climate Resilience Work
2017 - $5,000 Backyard Natives Nursery Program
2017 – $10,000 General Support
2014 - $5,000 General Support
2011 - $5,000 Green Hairstreak Butterfly Project
2010 - $5,000 Green Hairstreak Butterfly Project

As the only non-profit organization dedicated to restoration & stewardship of San Francisco’s natural heritage, Nature in the City plays a critical role in securing the city’s wild lands for future generations. Nature in the City connects with the city at large through the sponsorship of nature walks, events for children and families, eco-literacy training, volunteer opportunities, and resources for community groups wishing to start their own citizen science projects.

Green Hairstreak Butterfly project
Discovered by modern science in the late 1800s from “the hills of San Francisco” the Green Hairstreak (Callophrys dumetorum) is a small, nickel-sized butterfly isolated in three remaining remnant habitats within the city: Hawk Hill and Rocky Outcrop overlooking the Sunset District and the coastal bluffs of the Presidio. The primary goal of the Green Hairstreak Project is to connect two disjunctive butterfly populations in the Sunset District with street level plantings of host and nectar sources. If the two populations can interbreed, their genetic viability and diversity will be more secure.

natureinthecity.org

Nouvelle Vie, Haiti

Nouvelle Vie, Haiti
2010 - $5,000 Permaculture Training Programs

The Nouvelle Vie Youth Corps is a network of young Haitian leaders who serve Haiti’s trauma relief and food security needs, empowering Haitian communities toward greater self-reliance.

Since the earthquake in 2010 the Youth Corps has been providing trauma relief and food security services to thousands of people impacted by the disaster. Our food security program involves identifying and reaching out to vulnerable populations, particularly schools and orphanages, and conducting basic training in permaculture techniques aimed at enabling these populations to grow their own food and convert organic wastes into soil through composting. We focus on simple and effective techniques for growing substantial quantities of nutritious food on small footprints of land, such as vertical rice sack gardens. A grant of $5,000 supports the training costs for at least one student. After the training, each student will have the skills and support needed to train at least 1,000 people per year in practical sustainable agricultural techniques, a substantial return on investment in the development of a grassroots sustainable food system in Haiti.

Pie Ranch

Pie Ranch
2019 - $15,000 General Support
2018 - $15,000 Climate Beneficial Farming at Año Nuevo
2016 - $10,000 General Support
2015 - $10,000 General Support
2010 - $10,000 Capital Campaign
2009 - $10,000 Capital Campaign
2008 - $10,000 Capital Campaign
2007 - $15,000 General Support

PIE RANCH'S MISSION IS TO CULTIVATE A HEALTHY AND JUST FOOD SYSTEM FROM SEED TO TABLE THROUGH FOOD EDUCATION, FARMER TRAINING, AND REGIONAL PARTNERSHIPS.

Pie Ranch works with Bay Area youth and the public via hands-on programming to foster awareness about where food originates, to gain insight into the issues farmworkers face and to understand the benefits of climate-smart farming. Apprentices train to prepare for their own careers in local agriculture by living on site and participating in every aspect of a working farm. Pie Ranch works with partners like the Amah Mutsun, the San Mateo Food Systems Alliance, Puente and others where interests intersect to advocate for a more equitable food system and a healthier planet.

In March of 2020, programming at the farm halted due to COVID-19. Seeking a way to be of use to the Greater Bay Area while regular programming was in abeyance, the Directors crafted a Farm Fresh Food Relief Program that utilized Pie Ranch’s program staff to aggregate, pack and distribute fresh produce to already marginalized communities suffering additional hardship from the virus’ economic impact. To date, this ongoing weekly program has served over 20,000 families with healthy, nutritious food.

August brought the CZU fire to Pie Ranch and to southern San Mateo county. Several Pie team members lost their homes while the farm’s historic house (the heart of Pie Ranch, home to its apprentices for over a decade and site of the Pie admin offices), its greenhouse, and countless trees fell to the blaze.

The extended Pie Family, including the Seed Fund rallied to support Pie Ranch’s ongoing efforts to recover from the twin catastrophes of the fire and assist with the organization’s effort to ameliorate the effects COVID-19. Seed Fund assistance ensures Pie’s program team has the resources to reach and teach youth and the public with online videos, creating socially-distanced curriculum at school gardens and implementing these same types of activities for small pods from partner schools and organizations at the farm.

The Emerging Farmers’ program lives on in a different iteration at neighboring Cascade Ranch , a climate - resilient regenerator farm that seeks to create wealth and equitable building opportunities for early stage farmers that have traditionally been excluded from land ownership. Land, mentorship, equipment access, and business planning are just some of the resources Pie Ranch funnels towards participants in this innovative program with the help of donors like the Seed Fund.

Pie’s Farmstand was able to stay open as an essential business providing this isolated community with farm fresh produce and in addition, a source of revenue for the farm during a time when other income streams have dried up.

Pie Ranch’s continued efforts in regional advocacy work took on a new significance this year with COVID exacerbating the fissures in the ailing food system and then climate change, drought and fires threatening the local Bay Area agri-system like never before. Pie’s advocacy efforts, partially supported by the Seed Fund, towards crafting a more sustainable Coastside is integral to the viability of our agriculture: Pie puts forth the vision of a more localized food infrastructure as described in the Local Food and Farm Bill, and this will help create a more just and planet-friendly food system.

pieranch.org

Plant SF

Plant SF
2010 - $5,000 Naples Green, Pavement to Parks Project
2007 - $5,000 General Support

Plant SF exists to promote permeable landscaping as sustainable urban infrastructural practice and as a beautification effort; by providing information to the public and by partnering with city and neighborhood organizations.  This mission is accomplished through encouraging and enabling individuals to use an existing permit process to convert areas of the public right-of-way (sidewalks) to exposed-earth gardens, advocating the use of native and drought tolerant plant species, and coordinating with local organizations to facilitate plantings.  Plant SF also works with city agencies to encourage permeable landscaping strategies as urban infrastructure and advocates for sustainable water practices, such as ground water recharge, roof drain diversion and water reclamation.

Naples Green was designed to provide neighborhood beautification, new green space, traffic calming improvements and a safe and enjoyable environment for residents to host and accommodate neighborhood events and activities. The work scope included the transformation of approximately 7,500 square feet of concrete and asphalt into new green public open space. At Naples green, landscaped areas with hundreds of new plants and 18 new trees, raised planter beds and pathways all come together to provide an inviting new open space. By removing concrete and asphalt, the Naples Green also provides storm water benefits by allowing rainwater to permeate into the ground instead of flowing into the sewer system.  It is located in the Crocker Amazon neighborhood of San Francisco, on Naples Street between Rolph Street and Geneva Avenue.

plantsf.org

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Education Fund

A recipient of the SF Bicycle Coalition’s Bike Match program.

Car-free space in Golden Gate Park.

People biking and enjoying a car-free Great Highway during the pandemic.

Students during a socially-distant bike education class.

Bay area residents enjoying biking on San Francisco streets.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Education Fund
2019 - $10,000 General Support
2017 - $10,000 Transportation Equity Network
2013 - $5,000 "Kit of Parts" Manual
2012 - $25,000 2nd Street Project
2011 - $10,000 Family Biking Guide and Programs
2010 - $10,000 Connecting the City
2009 - $5,000 Great Streets Program

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is one of the oldest bicycle advocacy organizations in the country and was founded in 1971 by a group of activists representing a coalition of environmental and neighborhood groups. The organization quickly evolved into a powerful alliance of individuals working for a more bicycle-friendly city. The SF Bicycle Coalition has been dominated by a grassroots volunteer ethic ever since, growing into one of the strongest bicycle advocacy organizations in the country. For over 45 years, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has been transforming San Francisco streets and neighborhoods by promoting the bicycle for everyday transportation. Through their day-to-day advocacy, education and working partnerships with city and community agencies, the organization continues to create safe, just, and livable streets for all San Franciscans.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition embodies their core principles: transportation justice, sustainability, people power, and joy in all areas of their work. In their 2018-2022 strategic plan, the SF Francisco Bicycle Coalition incorporated these values to construct and execute a plan that prioritizes quality bicycle infrastructure and increases safety and invites more people to bike. In an effort to adapt to a world that’s changing the way it gets around, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition aims to transform the streets of San Francisco through:

1. The demand of high-quality infrastructure and visionary improvements to connect the city;
2. Building public support and political power to win affordable and sustainable transportation for all San Franciscans; 
3. The growth, engagement, and empowerment of membership in order to strengthen the organization and deepen community support for bicycling and; 
4. Introducing San Franciscans of all ages, identities, and backgrounds to the joy of bicycling and encouraging more San Franciscans to bicycle more often.

To fulfill these objectives, the SF Bicycle Coalition employs both their programmatic and advocacy related work to promote, educate, and reimagine transportation in San Francisco. Nationwide, transportation remains to be the second biggest expense in a household’s budget, and families in San Francisco feel that cost acutely. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition strives to provide affordable transit options to those in need and promote the bicycle for everyday transportation. 

Through the Bike It Forward program, the SF Bicycle Coalition works alongside community groups around the City to organize events structured to provide bikes to neighborhood residents. The organization reclaims unclaimed and abandoned bikes from the SFMTA, BART, and other agencies that are repaired with the help of volunteers. Alternatively, the Bike Match program connects people who have bikes they no longer use with those who need a bike. As a cooperative, community-driven collaborative, neighborhood residents who have expressed a need through partner organizations, complete a bicycle education course, get properly fitted for their new bike, and leave with a new, affordable, fun and healthy way to get around. 

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is considered the leading resource for street safety and education in the city. The organization structures its curriculum to cater toward people who bike and those who share the streets with people who bike. Whether a course is dedicated to youth and family biking, navigating safely through San Francisco, learning how to share the streets with all forms of transit, riding at night and in all weather conditions, or just getting acquainted with the basics, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is proud to offer free online resources and classes that accommodate all age ranges, levels of comfortability, and experience.

Through their advocacy work, the SF Bicycle Coalition continues to push for more car-free spaces, slow streets, and safe, high-quality biking infrastructure. To keep expanding the number of Slow Streets, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition continues to push the City to explore more permanent treatments and prioritize the densest San Francisco neighborhoods, including the Tenderloin and SoMa. In 2020, advocacy for better bike infrastructure pushed forward and construction continued on Lefty O’Doul Bridge, 7th Street from Folsom to Townsend, Howard Street from 3rd to Embarcadero, new protected bike lane segments on the Embarcadero, and improvements to 20th Avenue in the Outer Sunset. 

During the pandemic, the organization has seen six times more people biking in Golden Gate Park. Now, after decades of advocacy, San Franciscans can enjoy a fully car-free route from the Panhandle to Ocean Beach; take a car-free ride through the Panhandle, to the eastern segment of JFK Drive, through Overlook and Middle Drive, and onto the car-free western segment of MLK Drive. While more people are looking to spend more time outdoors amidst the lifting of shelter-in-place orders, the Slow Streets program has also expanded car-free space across San Francisco to help people stay healthy and safe. Thanks to this program, people can maintain social distance as they walk, bike, and roll on over 30 corridors that are closed to vehicle through traffic. 

The Seed Fund have been supporters of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for over a decade and have partnered with the organization to fund certain campaigns centered around transportation justice, sustainability, people power, and joy. Some of these projects include:

• In 2012, the Seed Fund granted the SF Bicycle Coalition $5,000 toward the 2nd Street redesign in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood to push for and prioritize biking and walking infrastructure. 

• In 2013, $5,000 was granted to the SF Bicycle Coalition’s “Kit of Parts” manual that provided city planners with information on how to quickly transform city streets that included separated bikeways, greening initiatives, and sidewalk expansions. The toolkit was intended to be an open and accessible resource that provided inspirational, practical, and feasible designs not only for San Francisco officials but other cities looking to create more sustainable solutions on both a national and global scale. 

• In 2017, The Seed Fund funded the SF Bicycle Coalition’s Transportation Equity Network proposal that identified the need to come together with other local community partners to establish a collective that ensured an equitable distribution of bikes. The Community Bike Build program (now formally known as the Bike It Forward program) needed to extend beyond simply providing low income residents with a bike, lights, lock and helmet. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition — along with its partners —  determined that additional resources like bicycle safety education, affordable maintenance and culturally competent infrastructure needed to be implemented.

• In 2019, The Seed Fund funded the SF Bicycle Coalition’s Embarcadero campaign which helped hire staff and additional resources to ensure that the vision of a two-way bike lane along the waterfront side of the Embarcadero project advanced toward approvals. The $10,000 grant toward this project gave the SF Bicycle Coalition the flexibility to work with elected officials and City agencies to identify and allocate funding for construction. Additionally, these funds helped ensure that the necessary time and resources to make this project a national and international model for linking climate adaptation and mitigation efforts through the best practices of green infrastructure were met. 

sfbike.org

Shaping San Francisco

Shaping San Francisco
2019 - $10,000 General Support
2018 - $5,000 General Support 
2017 - $5,000 General Support
2016 - $5,000 General Support
2013 - $5,000 General Support
2012 - $5,000 General Support
2010 - $5,000 Ecology Emerges Project Documentation

Serving the City for 25 years, Shaping San Francisco is an ongoing multimedia project in bottom-up history, offering an online archive at FoundSF.org—a place to document, discover, and shape San Francisco history—and public programming sharing the stories of daily life in the City by the Bay. Shaping San Francisco provides access to the City's lost history, with a long-term goal of facilitating its discovery, presentation, and preservation. The project seeks to create a physical and virtual commons where together we make—and understand our place within—history every day

Shaping San Francisco believes that “History is a Creative Act in the Present,” or in other words, each person is an agent of history, and every moment is historical, even if relatively little makes it on to the “historical record.” Shaping San Francisco’s public engagement promotes the idea that history can—and should—be de-professionalized, made into a popular, participatory process. More than just a website, more than just a lecture series, more than a collection of ongoing walking and bike tours, Shaping San Francisco encourages collective investigation of and creation of new shared social histories about the world we cohabitate together.

Shaping San Francisco's work encourages ordinary citizens to see the urban environment around them having been created in by a combination of social and ecological processes over time, within historic economic and cultural contexts; just as important the urban environment is shaped, too, by a ceaseless effort to challenge the meaning and direction of those processes and contexts. Shaping San Francisco has focused from its origins on San Francisco's ecological history, the relentless leveling of its famous hills and the steady filling of the bay to “make land,” which permanently altered the surrounding bay. Shaping San Francisco’s historical investigations of the changing ecology of the City have led to unique and enduring analyses integrating its tradition of dissent with the dramatic (and often catastrophic) changes that dissenters often sought to prevent.

15 seasons of FREE Public Talks provide an informative, engaging cultural forum inviting presenters and audiences to dialogue about issues covering Art & Politics, Historical and Literary Perspectives, Social Movements, and Ecology, emphasizing the intersections of multiple themes across fluid boundaries of disciplines and paradigms. This in-person discussion space is meant as an antidote to historical amnesia, creating a place to change the climate of public intellectualism in San Francisco, and an unmediated place to meet and talk. Most all of the Public Talks are archived online. Historical walking and bicycle tours—and the recent addition of Urban Forums: Walk & Talks and Bay Cruises—bring people together to learn how the City is shaped through the efforts of engaged citizens and from a perspective rooted in its overlooked and forgotten histories, including those of marginalized populations (and species!) who don’t show up in the history books.

Shaping San Francisco fosters academic and community partnerships, incorporating a service learning element to its public programming, offering historic context for the issues currently faced in the urban setting through tours to students and community members. As seasoned tour guides, editors, and educators, the directors are frequently asked to share their expertise through custom tours and classes; they create customized tours each month as well as collaborative projects year-round including teaching, guest-curating, and co-producing projects. Shaping San Francisco is a fiscally-sponsored affiliate of Independent Arts & Media, with whom successful collaborations have been forged over the course of a decade.

shapingsf.org

SPUR (formerly San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association)

SPUR’s We Are the Bay exhibition

Farmer’s market in San Francisco; photo credit Sergio Ruiz

Rising tides threatening to flood; photo credit Sergio Ruiz

SPUR’s How We Move exhibition

A transit + design workshop held at SPUR’s Urban Center

SPUR (formerly San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association)
2023 - $20,000 Transit Oriented Communities
2021 - $15,000 Transit Priority Program
2019 - $10,000 Operational Landscape Units Project
2018 - $20,000 Regional Plan
2017 - $10,000 Operational Landscape Units Project (with SFEI)
2017 - $10,000 Framework for Sea-Level Rise Adaptation
2016 - $15,000 Framework for Sea-Level Rise Adaptation
2014 - $15,000 Fossil Fuel Reduction Report
2010 - 2014 $38,000 Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program
2007 - $5,000 General Support

Work

Through research, education and advocacy, SPUR works to create an equitable, sustainable and prosperous region. SPUR practices urban policy, developing and advocating for ideas and reforms to bring about systems change. The decisions that shape housing, transportation, land use, economics, food access, sustainability and resilience have significant impacts on people’s lives. SPUR also focuses on governance because it’s how communities organize themselves to achieve collective goals and because SPUR believes in the power of government as a force for good. SPUR works across the nine counties of the Bay Area because the structural systems that shape people’s lives— the housing market, the transportation network, the economy — are regional. SPUR does deep work in San Francisco, San José and Oakland because policies set in the region’s three biggest cities have widespread impact on most Bay Area residents and because local context is critical for effective policy. SPUR believes that community and individual well-being are healthiest when a society achieves equity, sustainability and prosperity. Equity because systemic racism continues to create unjust and unacceptable outcomes for many members of our community. Sustainability because human well-being depends on a healthy and thriving natural environment. And prosperity because meeting individual and collective needs requires resources. SPUR conducts its work through research, education and advocacy because these tools have the power to change minds and shape outcomes. The organization believes that profound systems change requires addressing beliefs, relationships and policies, and SPUR works at all three of these levels. SPUR grounds its work in a spirit of inquiry and a big-tent perspective that engages partners and communities across the region.

Goals

SPUR has many key goals related to each of the organization's major policy areas, including:
Planning: Add new jobs and housing where they will support equity and sustainability, and make neighborhoods safe and welcoming to everyone.
Housing: Make housing affordable for everyone.
Transportation: Make it fast, easy and inexpensive to get around without driving alone.
Sustainability + Resilience: Eliminate carbon emissions and make communities resilient to climate change.
Economic Justice: Enable all people to participate in the region’s thriving economy and attain economic security.
Good Government: Support a high-functioning public sector that serves the collective good.
Food + Agriculture: Create healthy, just and sustainable food systems, and put an end to food insecurity.

Achievements

SPUR has accomplished many things over the course of its 100+ year history. The organization shaped some of the most important planning and urban policy issues in the region, including planning for the BART system, establishing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, proposing San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and more. Recent achievements of the organization in 2020, include:

• Crafting more than 70 policy recommendations on housing, transportation, planning, sustainability and resilience and more
• Welcoming more than 13,000 individuals to public forums covering pressing issues in the Bay Area, such as the housing affordability crisis, economic inequality, how COVID-19 affects small businesses and more
• Co-sponsoring three pieces of legislation passed by California lawmakers, including SB288, which expands CEQA exemptions to speed up the delivery of sustainable transportation projects in the state
• Hosting the organization's first Ideas + Action symposium, which brought together public space experts and more than 1,500 attendees from across North America
• Released numerous reports and white papers, on topics such as the future of transportation, transit project delivery, climate hazards and modeling future places, which envisions a Bay Area that can welcome everyone
• Hosting a forum with Mayors Breed, Liccardo and Schaaf of San Francisco, San José and Oakland to learn how cities of the Bay Area can collectively work toward a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous region
• Leading convening efforts for the new California Home Builders Alliance, an informal advocacy coalition focusing on state legislation and regulatory reforms to build more housing

Impact Report attached; our most recent annual report was online only--it is available here: https://www.spur.org/about/annual-reports/2020

spur.org

The High Line

The High Line
2014 - $5,000 Thriving Cities Lecture Series
2013 - $5,000 Beyond the High Line
2010 - $1,000 General Support

Friends of the High Line works to build and maintain the extraordinary public park on the High Line in New York City.  They seek to preserve the entire historic structure, transforming an essential piece of New York’s industrial past and providing over 70 percent of the High Line’s annual operating budget.  Friends of the High Line is responsible for maintenance of the park, pursuant to a license agreement with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Through stewardship, innovative design and programming, and excellence in operations they cultivate a vibrant community around the High Line.

Beyond the High Line

Beyond the High Line showcases exceptional adaptive urban reuse projects from around the country, featuring projects that have a strong likelihood of being completed, but are still in formative phases. This series will foster discussion about what moves these kinds of projects forward and to raise the profile of other projects that have the potential to transform neighborhoods, cities, or regions—expanding the visibility of the entire field of adaptive reuse. 

Thriving Cities

A forum where participants can explore new ways to make their blocks, neighborhoods and cities better, more livable places.  The day-long program will feature public talks, book presentations, civic participation workshops and children's activities - all exploring recent trends and ideas around contemporary urban design and planning that foster sustainability, equity and creativity.

thehighline.org

Veggielution

Veggielution
2010 - $3,000 Support for Cold Storage Construction

Veggielution is a two acre non-profit community farm dedicated to creating a more sustainable food system in San Jose, California. Veggielution works to empower people to change the way they think about food by getting their hands in the soil, connecting with the land, and tasting the fruits of their labor. In low-income communities, it isn’t just about the personal choice to eat healthier – as that choice often isn’t available.  By fostering positive social interactions between all those who participate in their community farm, participants feel as though they are a part of a larger farm community, which is centered on the land that they work, the food that they share, and the understanding that they are all dependent on each other and the natural environment that sustains us.

veggielution.org