Community & Economic Development

The Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) was poised to launch the ABCD Initiative, a project designed to support the development of new childcare spaces in California. Determined to integrate an evaluation component into the project from the start, LIIF asked BTW to steward the process.

BTW began by facilitating a three-month planning process that included project staff, funders and local partners. In that time, participants were able to articulate ABCD’s Theory of Change, which in turn provided a framework for BTW’s multi-year evaluation of the Initiative.

Every year since 2005, BTW has evaluated and documented progress toward anticipated outcomes. Based on our findings, we provide LIIF with ongoing recommendations for improving its program and refining its goals. BTW also documented the ABCD model in The ABCD Story, which LIIF uses to disseminate the ABCD model for broader adoption.

Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) invests in and supports businesses that provide economic gains to low- and moderate-income communities in California. Since its founding in 1999, PCV has helped companies access capital, business advice and other resources for accelerating company growth.

BTW has worked with Pacific Community Ventures since its inception to measure the social returns of its work. Among other services, BTW:

• Wrote an internationally distributed case study of the organization’s approach
• Provided PCV with vital data on the portfolio’s ability to create quality jobs for low/moderate income employees
• Evaluated PCV’s Business Advisory Service
• Helped build PCV’s internal capacity to evaluate social and community impacts

With BTW’s strategic support, PCV continues to bring together principles of venture capital and community development to enhance communities across the state.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) and a handful of funders had developed a clear strategy for how cities could curb the problem of long-term homelessness. Now they needed help getting their message to policy makers and other funders.

With BTW’s guidance, CSH incubated and launched the Partnership to End Long-Term Homelessness, renamed Funders Together in 2007. BTW helped the Partnership define its purpose, values, and goals, and then facilitated the group’s initial programmatic efforts.

The group is now an active funders network officially affiliated with the Council on Foundations. To date, more than 100 members have registered and are using the resources on Funders Together’s website.

REDF’s purpose is to improve the lives of San Francisco Bay Area residents who face chronic poverty and homelessness. A leader in social entrepreneurship, REDF works to expand the capacity of nonprofit “enterprise employment”: enterprises that put people to work. Committed to monitoring results, REDF hired BTW to measure and analyze the impact of those efforts.

BTW collected outcome data on portfolio employees from 1998 through 2008, and are now analyzing the results. Our culminating report will provide REDF—and the nonprofit organizations it supports—with an understanding of the impact of enterprise employment in the Bay Area.

Great Communities Collaborative is a transit-oriented initiative of three Bay Area community foundations and several social justice nonprofits. Three years after forming, the Collaborative needed to assess its progress and transition out of a three-year grant cycle.

BTW led the consortium through two strategic retreats. With BTW’s facilitation, the Collaborative developed a plan to create 25 densely developed transit villages through the San Francisco Bay Area, laying the groundwork for positive and effective land use. On the strength of this cooperative plan, the Collaborative was in turn able to secure a new round of funding to advance this work.