Pro Bono Consulting Page
Project by Project SF dedicates time to supporting our partners in any way that we can. Every year, the Outreach team works directly with our partner by providing pro bono consulting. Members of our Steering Committee design and implement creative solutions to address challenges that our partners have identified.
2023 - Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC)
The Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC) builds vibrant communities through Asian and Pacific Islander arts and cultural programs that foster inter-generational and cross-cultural dialogue and understanding, collaboration, and social justice.
In 2023, PbP’s annual campaign theme was “Education Access”, and we were excited to increase access to impactful cultural programming across the Bay Area through our partnership with OACC. However, OACC has limited resources, so planning, managing, marketing, and hosting multiple events can take a lot of work. In addition, one of OACC’s top priorities was to increase young adult involvement in its programming so that the many programs and services could remain relevant and responsive to the evolving needs of the community.
To increase young adult community involvement, our team co-hosted several events with OACC, including a fun trivia night with food, drinks, and games. We also helped to streamline OACC operations (including automating marketing processes and developing consistent materials for volunteer training), which enabled staff members to focus more on other important initiatives and more creative tasks. PbP also helped create a video on “Community Connection” alongside valuable stakeholders in OACC’s vibrant community.
2022 - Project by Project’s 25th Anniversary Year
2021 - Florence Fang Community Farm (FFCF)
Florence Fang Community Farm (FFCF) is an urban farm located in Bayview, one of San Francisco’s most underserved neighborhoods. FFCF transformed an old plot of CalTrain land into a sophisticated urban oasis and strives to bring their surrounding communities together.
In 2021, the PbP team worked with FFCF to better improve their processes, provide new opportunities to their volunteers, and reach out to other local organizations for support.
After in-depth meetings, proposals, and problem-defining sessions, the team worked on the following three projects where we believed would impact FFCF the most:
Community Talks series: Started a speaker series to teach volunteers about life skills and current events to not only give back to the people who make FFCF so great, but to create a close-knit community for the volunteers to learn and grow. The series attracted a wide variety of attendees throughout three speaker events, ranging from Renter’s Rights to voting. Many of the attendees are older immigrants with limited English proficiency. Providing them with resources in their native language offered them useful information and connections they might not otherwise have.
Corporate Outreach: Created an effective outreach strategy to connect FFCF with several Bay Area’s companies and corporations to establish partnerships, such as connecting on social media, and host in-person farm days. To achieve this, we created a guide and recommended timeline for companies that FFCF should reach out to each year. These companies align with FFCF’s values in sustainability, intergenerationality, and intersectionality as well as collaborate on volunteer days, donations, or other events.
Salesforce Platform: Supported FFCF in organizing and better utilizing Salesforce platform to keep track of and engage long-term with their volunteers, partners and fundraising leads. We successfully organized their data for optimum collection, modularity, and longevity. We also created a list of procedures detailing how this data organization can be sustained.
To close out the year, we provided FFCF with our unique expertise and insights, leaving our projects in good hands for them to continue flourishing with detailed instructions and presentations. We were happy to hear our partner be both receptive and pleased by much of our work. The team has learned and grown a lot throughout the year together. We developed as leaders, non-profit problem solvers, and as climate advocates through our time at FFCF. We are immensely grateful for this opportunity and cannot wait to see FFCF continue to grow and expand their programs.
2020 - AAPI FORCE-EF
AAPIs For Civic Empowerment-Education Fund (AAPI FORCE-EF) is an alliance of community organizations serving Asian American and Pacific Islanders across the state of California. AAPI FORCE-EF builds organizers, organizations, and networks to form a far-reaching, powerful AAPI political bloc. We work on campaigns that center the needs of working-class Asian immigrant, refugee, and Pacific Islander families. We speak to voters in their own languages and empower young AAPI voters to mark their ballots. We work together to build the power necessary for positive change in our communities.
Through multiple rounds of meetings and proposals, the 2020 Cases team realized that AAPI FORCE's pain points were derived from a single issue: a lack of personnel bandwidth. Cases then proposed the creation of a fellowship or internship program to allow the Directors in AAPI Force to better disseminate content while still organizing meetings and events. The main goal was to provide AAPI FORCE with more resources to ramp up for the upcoming election in November 2020 while maintaining high standards for their contention creation strategy and events with their various partners.
In a 3 month buildup, it took the Cases team just a few weeks to:
Fully analyze AAPI FORCE's content portfolio and various other resources to make recommendations of how to optimize efficiency
Liaise with AAPI FORCE stakeholders about fellowship requirements and start execution of this initiative
Flesh out multiple job descriptions
Mobilize dissemination of the job descriptions to many institutions, organizations, and personal networks
Redouble efforts after AAPI FORCE requested a deeper applicant pool
AAPI FORCE was enthusiastic about the Cases team's efforts and attributed the high quality of their fellowship team to this initiative. The 2020 Cases team was happy to be of service to AAPI FORCE, and was thankful for the strong cooperation and communication, as well as strengthening the relationship between PbP and AAPI FORCE.
2019 - Gum Moon
Gum Moon Women’s Residence & the Asian Women’s Resource Center, our beneficiary partner in 2019, was founded in 1868 to provide a safe sanctuary for women and immigrant families in San Francisco (see Past Partners).
The Cases team proposed a new digital strategy to help the organization connect with their millennial population. The goal was to expand their visibility, professionalize their online presence, and better connect with younger generations.
In just 12 weeks, the Cases team...
Developed a comprehensive, 30+ page proposal on how Gum Moon can start building their digital strategy, which was presented to our partner’s board members.
Identified a more specific target audience and determined how best to address them.
Proposed a new mission statement. Our team recommended:
“Gum Moon provides a safe sanctuary for women and empowers immigrant families by fostering community, stability and self-reliance.”
Advised ways to improve the Gum Moon website as a digital resource for new audiences and current supporters. See their website here.
Gum Moon loved the recommendations and put PbP’s proposal in front of their board. The team worked very closely with Gum Moon throughout the process and built strong relationships along the way.