Please note that I’ve redacted some parts of this that are too personal.

I believe I was put on this earth to…

 

To build infrastructures designed to increase the  purchasing power of African youths 

 

My purpose is to…

 

Inspire others to embrace their uniqueness and pursue their passions.

 

I believe (my core values)… love, peace, and progress.

The one thing I must do before I die is…

 

Create a lasting positive impact on at least 100 million lives 

 

My advocates and supporters all believe that I…

 

Have the ability to do odd things and inspire other people to follow their hearts.

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is…

 

Ignorance that leads to discrimination and prevents people from realizing their potential.

I want to work in order to…

Contribute meaningfully to projects and causes that align with my values and passions.

Impact Statement

The potential social impact of our project is to significantly increase food access and education in San Francisco for those who are food insecure. By providing more accurate and up-to-date information about food resources in the city, we will help individuals and families find the support they need. Additionally, by empowering community organizations and working with government agencies, we will foster a more cohesive system that can effectively address food insecurity.

Redesigned System

Our redesigned system will enhance the food security network in San Francisco, connecting government and community organizations to break down silos and ensure a coordinated approach to addressing food insecurity. Our coalition, SF Food Connects, will bridge the gap between these entities, leveraging the strengths of each to achieve greater impact.

Coalition Framework

SF Food Connects will be a collaborative platform composed of non-profits, social ventures, and community-based entities. Our focus will be on broadening the reach and scope of food security initiatives, ensuring their sustainability and integrating them with governmental efforts to eradicate food insecurity in San Francisco.

External Interactions

We will actively engage with stakeholders across the food system, from food banks and soup kitchens to farmers markets and grocery stores. Our goal is to foster collaboration, share resources, and identify opportunities for collective action.

Role of the Coalition

SF Food Connects will play a pivotal role in transforming the food security system in San Francisco. We will:

• Unify efforts by bringing together government and community organizations under a single umbrella.
• Connect organizations by facilitating knowledge sharing and resource exchange.
• Enable funding by leveraging our partnerships and advocating for increased resources.
• Advocate policy changes that promote food security and accessibility.

Metrics of Success

Our success will be measured by the following metrics:

• Increased collaboration: We will track the number and scope of collaborative projects between government and community organizations.
• Improved database: We will evaluate the accuracy and comprehensiveness of our food resource database.
• Expanded funding opportunities: We will track the increase in funding and resources available for food security initiatives.
• Reduced prevalence of food insecurity: We will track the decline in the number of households and individuals experiencing food insecurity.

Aspirational Goals in Three Years

Our aspirational goals for the next three years are to:

• Boost collaboration: A 30% increase in joint initiatives and collaborative projects between government and community organizations.
• Enhance funding: A 20% increase in available funding and resources for food security initiatives.
• Increase food sovereignty: Ensure equitable access to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sustainable methods.

Funding Allocation

We will allocate the $100M from the MacArthur Foundation in the following areas:

• Community gardens and urban agriculture: $5M to establish and expand community gardens and urban agriculture programs to increase access to fresh, locally grown food.
• Partnership strengthening and expansion: $5M to strengthen and expand existing partnerships with key organizations like the FAACTS coalition, Glide Memorial Church, and Project Open Hand.
• Advocacy and policy engagement: $5M to engage in advocacy and policy engagement efforts to promote policies that support food security and access.
• Building more food banks: $5M to build new food banks and expand the capacity of existing food banks.
• Job training programs: $5M to provide job training programs for individuals to increase their income and purchasing power.
• Housing solutions: $5M to build more free housing units and subsidize housing costs for individuals experiencing food insecurity.
• Subsidies for low-income individuals: $5M to provide subsidies for food and other essential needs for individuals with very low income.
• Supporting existing food distribution sources: $5M to donate to and support existing food distribution sources, such as food pantries and soup kitchens.
• Developing better school nutrition programs: $5M to develop and implement better school nutrition programs to ensure that all students have access to nutritious food.
• Community outreach and raising awareness: $5M to conduct community outreach and raise awareness about food insecurity and the availability of resources.
• Improving transportation: $5M to improve transportation infrastructure and provide transportation subsidies to make it easier for individuals to access food sources.
• Eliminating the issue from its root cause: $5M to develop and implement initiatives to address the root causes of food insecurity, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of access to healthy food.
• Website development and storytelling campaigns: $5M to develop and maintain a user-friendly website that provides information about food resources and conducts storytelling campaigns to educate the public about food insecurity.

• Centralized communication system:

  • $5M to develop a centralized communication system that connects all organizations in the food sector, facilitating collaboration and resource sharing.

  Professional research team:

  • $5M to establish a professional research team to conduct a comprehensive review of existing food systems and identify innovative solutions to address food insecurity.

  Health clinics for low-income/food insecure individuals:

  • $5M to build and maintain free health clinics specifically for low-income individuals and families experiencing food insecurity. These clinics will provide preventive care, nutrition counseling, and other essential health services to promote overall well-being.

    Strengths

    • Established partnerships with key organizations in the food security sector
    • Wide database of food resources available
    • Strong community support and willingness to collaborate
    • Deep insights into the intricacies of the food system from partner organizations

    Weaknesses

    • Challenges in developing and maintaining a user-friendly website accessible to all
    • Difficulty in measuring impact in the initial stages of the project
    • Reliance on volunteers, which can be difficult to sustain

    Opportunities

    • Strong community support to lobby for increased government funding
    • Partnerships provide valuable insights to reach a broader population

    Threats

    • Difficulty obtaining funding due to the complex nature of food insecurity
    • Reliance on volunteers, which can limit the project’s scalability

Impact statement: What is the POTENTIAL size and social/economic impact of your venture?

Three years from now, the social impact of our project will be an increase in food accessibility in San Francisco for those who are food insecure. In addition, residents will be much more educated on the food system and what systems are in place to help them/ what needs to be done to improve it.

What will the redesigned system look like?

 

How will your coalition work? What external entities and subsystems will it interact with?

Identify the role that your venture / innovation plays in transforming the system?

Redesigned system: Enhances food security network in San Francisco.

Coalition: SF Food Connects bridges government and community organizations.

Framework: Comprises non-profits, social ventures, and community-based entities.

Expansion: Aims to broaden reach, scope, and sustainability.

Integration: Involves governmental bodies for eradicating food insecurity.

External interactions: Engages stakeholders for collaboration and resource pooling.

Role: Unifies efforts, connects organizations, enables funding, and advocates policy changes.

Metrics of Success:

• Increased collaboration between government and community organizations within SF Food Connects.
• Database provides more accurate information about places to look for food in SF.
• Higher funding opportunities and resources available for food security initiatives.
• Reduction in the prevalence of food insecurity in San Francisco.

Aspirational Goals in Three Years:

• Collaboration Boost: Achieve a 30% increase in joint initiatives and collaborative projects between government and community organizations.
• Funding Enhancement: Secure a 20% increase in available funding and resources for food security initiatives.
• Increase Food Sovereignty:  Ensure rights healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods

Where will you allocate the $100M from the MacArthur Foundation?

Identify the XX spaces where the funding will be deployed.

(Your largest single allocation is limited to $5M)

1. Community gardens and urban agriculture ($5M)     17. Build safe spaces for drugs and rehab centers ($5M)
2. Partnership strengthening and expansion ($5M)       18. Development of safe way to redistribute food ($5M)
3. Advocacy and policy engagement ($5M)       19. Donations to Farmers Market to recirculate money ($5M)
4. Building more food banks ($5M)       20. Development of areas like the tenderloin ($5M)
5. Job Training programs for individuals to increase SF residents income allowing them to buy food($5M)
6. Build more free housing units to allow food insecure individuals to use money saved on rent for food($5M)
7. Subsidizing individuals with very low income ($5M)
8. Donations to existing food distribution sources ($5M)
9. Development of better school nutrition programs ($5M)
10. Development of community outreach and raising awareness programs ($5M) 
11. Development of the transportation system to allow people to travel easier to access food ($5M)
12. Developing Initiatives to try to eliminate the issue from its root case ($5M)
13. Website development, maintenance and extension to include storytelling campaigns ($5M)
14. Developing a centralized communication system between all the organizations in the food sector for better resource management ($5M)
15. Professional Research team to do an extensive review of all existing systems to find solutions ($5M)
16. Build Health Clinics that are free for low income / food insecure ($5M)

Conduct a SWOT Analysis of your coalition.

What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of your coalition that will realize this transformed system?

 

Strengths:

1. We have established partnerships with key organizations like the FAACTS coalition, Glide Memorial Church, project open hand etc
2. We have a wide database of food resources available and is currently expanding

Weaknesses:

1. Developing and maintaining the site to make it accessible for all users on all devices is challenging and needs lots of work.
2. Scaling this project will be difficult because in the initial stages it is hard to measure our impact.

Opportunities:

1. SF has a strong community that is willing to support our initiative and help us lobby to the government to obtain increased funding.
2. Our partnerships offer deep insight into the intricacies of the food system which prove helpful in reaching a bigger population

Threats: 

1. It is difficult to obtain funding to tackle a problem that is so deep rooted in the community due to the complex nature of every factor.
2. Relying on volunteers as opposed to paid work, which can be difficult to sustain

 

Blog #3 

• What SDGs does your project target? What might be reasonable indicators for those SDGs?

Good Health and Well Being: Overall we want to make a project that improves the living condition of San Francisco natives. So far what we spoke about is food insecurity and how exactly we can dive into a solution with an art-centric approach. If we take up this challenge, ‘Good Health and Well Being’ will be the biggest byproduct.

 

Sustainable Cities and Communities: We believe that San Francisco as a whole has become disconnected as there are two extremes. The two extremes in this case are – on one side – the extremely wealthy, prosperous communities and on the other hand the homeless people fighting their own war on drugs and hunger. Surrounded by the two extremes is also a community of people struggling to find their next meal or pay for rent, even though they are living in one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Overall, our solution will be a network from high to low; how can we get resources from the top earners to the bottom ones and how it can become a beneficial process. 

 

Our number one indicator for our SDGs will be response surveys and interlocutor interaction. On the scale of the Bay Area (pop. ~873,000), our project will most likely be monitored via local discussion, surveys and community research; census data, hospital data, and other large scale data will not necessarily be accurate in aggregate with communities outside of our focus. That being said, we will not know specifically until we are able to refine our project’s principal goal and SDGs. 

• Crystallize the larger challenge your venture seeks to address, the specific problems you are targeting, and the kinds of opportunities you hope to leverage.

 

• As our project is completely new, we’re typing to figure out which specific problem we want to address. Therefore, we’re mentioning all the major problems that we identified.
• The current, underlying goal of the project is to reduce inequalities in the Bay Area; this issue pervades all of our prospective project problems of focus and the solutions to those challenges.
• Food Insecurity: Food insecurity in San Francisco refers to a major fraction of the population’s lack of access to sufficient and healthy food. Poverty, unemployment, low-wage jobs, high housing expenses, and a lack of access to healthy food alternatives all contribute to this complicated issue.
• According to recent research, around one in every four San Francisco residents is food insecure, with communities of color and low-income families being disproportionately affected. The restricted availability to inexpensive nutritious food alternatives, can lead to an unhealthy, highly processed, and high-calorie diet, resulting in diet-related health concerns such as obesity and diet-related chronic illnesses.
• With a scarcity of affordable housing alternatives and quickly rising prices, San Francisco’s housing crisis has become a serious issue that has grown over time. With a low vacancy rate and strong demand, the city has one of the highest median housing costs in the country, making it difficult for low- and moderate-income families to obtain affordable homes. The city’s dearth of cheap housing is worsened further by the city’s tech boom and influx of high-paying employment, which has resulted in gentrification and displacement of long-term inhabitants. This has led to a homelessness crisis, with thousands of inhabitants sleeping on the streets or in shelters, exacerbating the city’s housing shortage.

 

• Identify the two most important social, economic, and environmental bottom lines that matter to your project.

 

• The bottom line of the silicon valley impact fellowship is to identify the community and immerse ourselves through research and interactions in order to initialize a project to aid the community. Two main points of emphasis we have decided on are communal experiences (such as eating) and ways to group communities around the same issues. San Francisco has built distinct communal experiences by dividing it up into the neighborhoods people are a part of and not making an effort to step out. Questions we are asking ourselves are: 
  • How do we combine communities to form around larger purposes?
  • What Organizations are already doing what we plan on doing?
  •  How does the distribution from high income to low income play a part in solving inequalities?

• Describe ten cultural factors that might impact your project at various phases in its lifecycle. 

 

• Notions of courtesy and manners: 
• Attitudes toward rule: Understanding the ways in which the residents in the BAy Area relate to and are affected by legislation that affects their livelihood is paramount.
• Attitudes toward cooperation: The Bay Area, generally, has a very strong atmosphere of cooperation that has the potential to be extremely helpful. 
• Approaches to problem solving: Understanding how major issues are currently being solved will lend itself to understanding other cultural factors as well as the best ways in which to tackle our principal focus. 
• Notions of leadership: Hierarchical structures in community, municipal, and business ventures involving social impact as a principal goal will inform how we can best integrate our solution into existing structures, or how we will be able to create a new infrastructure that works alongside the community. 
• Sustainability: ensuring that the project will be sustainable should play a great role in getting the community attention we need to impact the community; this is due to the fact that SF is a sustainable city and citizens are always looking to improve on their sustainability practices.
• Communications styles and rules involving handling and displaying emotion
• Observable culture: San Francisco and the Bay Area have a prominent, unique  and iconic visual identity.
• Community bonds: establish stronger bonds for community members by means of sharing; such as sharing excess food.
• Commitment within the team and from the community partners
• General cultural expectations in the Bay Area: 

• Give three examples of cultural practices that can be leveraged to address community / market problems.

• Concepts of courtesy and manners: West Coast people sugarcoat negative things, east coast people don’t. They say everything to your face. We should keep that in mind while doing our fieldwork and interacting with the people in San Francisco.
• As our advisor Melly has a lot of art-based connections in the Bay Area, we aim to connect with the art organizations in the area to help us get a better understanding of the landscape.
• Applying focus to San Francisco’s environmental consciousness can help us familiarize and bond with the new community.