Service Project & Site Sessions

Service Project

Preregistration required.

AIDS Memorial Grove

*Sold out! Please check with us at the conference for open spots.

The AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is a dedicated space in the national landscape where millions of Americans touched directly or indirectly by AIDS can gather to heal, hope, and remember. Service project volunteers will learn about the Grove’s history and significance, and help with the work of creating and maintaining it. Activities may include clearing weeds and debris, mulching and hauling topsoil, and planting new trees and shrubs.

Site Sessions

Preregistration required.

Cross-Sector Collaboration

*Sold out! Please check with us at the conference for open spots.

San Francisco is a city filled with collaboratives, cooperatives, and communities that encourage shared resources and ideas across traditional boundaries, including those between the nonprofit, business, and government sectors. 5M PlaceWorks connects the collaborative power of more than 2,000 diverse organizations and individuals linked at the 5M Project to surrounding neighborhoods through placemaking and economic opportunity. Join us to meet 5M Project partners, including Intersection for the Arts, Hub, SOCAP, TechShop, and SFMade; hear funder stories about the roles they play in the project’s development; and learn how PlaceWorks encourages collaboration, reconciliation of cultural differences, and the blending of urban development with community service.

The 5M Project is a creative development anchored by the San Francisco Chronicle building. Over the next ten years, the four-acre site will become a mix of low, mid, and high rise buildings for living, working, and playing – transforming an underutilized property into a vibrant place for community and innovation.

This session is generously supported by Tides.

Presenters: Deborah Cullinan, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Christine Elbel, The Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, CA; Roxanne Hanson, Tides, San Francisco, CA; and Shelley Trott, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Oakland, CA

Getting at Root Causes

*Sold out! Please check with us at the conference for open spots.

Chronic, complex problems that foundations often seek to address are largely systemic, and some foundations are digging deeper to identify why certain problems persist and how to mitigate the underlying issues. To achieve its goals of addressing the root causes of violence, ASF member “The Woods” Charitable Foundation partners with organizations such as Futures Without Violence, our host for this site session. Leaders from Futures Without Violence and “The Woods” Charitable Foundation share insights from their experiences working together, strategies funders can use to determine if working at the root cause level is right for them, and ways to partner with nonprofits to do so.

The Futures Without Violence center in the Presidio of San Francisco has been designed as a global hub for action and thought leadership, where individuals and allied organizations from around the world can gather to realize the potential of a world without violence.

This session is generously supported by “The Woods” Charitable Foundation.

Presenters: Lonna Davis, Futures Without Violence, San Francisco, CA; Rachael Smith Fals, Futures Without Violence, San Francisco, CA; Laura Hogan, Futures Without Violence, San Francisco, CA; Arthur Johnson, “The Woods” Charitable Foundation, Reston, VA; Leni Marin, Futures Without Violence, San Francisco, CA; Esta Soler, Futures Without Violence, San Francisco, CA; and Mark Strode, “The Woods” Charitable Foundation, Napa, CA

Small Assets, Big Impact: Leveraging Through Collaboratives

*Sold out! Please check with us at the conference for open spots.

Grantmakers can utilize a range of tools—in addition to dollars—to make a difference. This site session examines how funder collaboration can help achieve greater impact. Departing from Pier 40 on the San Francisco Bay, participants will board a Marine Science Institute research vessel and travel into the bay to meet with members of two Bay Area/Silicon Valley funder collaboratives, the Out of School Time Collaborative and the Environmental Education Funders Collaborative, and their nonprofit grantees. Using entirely different models and approaches, the two collaboratives illustrate how ASF members use their dollars, expertise, and connections to dramatically leverage the impact of grants, strengthen nonprofits partners, and enjoy greater fulfillment in their work.

The Marine Science Institute’s 90-foot marine research vessel, the Robert G. Brownlee, puts students in direct physical contact with their local bay environment, helping cultivate their natural sense of curiosity while enriching their understanding of science and fostering a responsibility to protect their environment.

This session is generously supported by the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation and the Sand Hill Foundation.

Presenters: Dana Marcus, Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation, Studio City, CA; Ash McNeely, Sand Hill Foundation, Menlo Park, CA; Susanne Mulcahy, Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation, Studio City, CA; Carol Olson, Morgan Family Foundation, Los Altos, CA; Joe Ross, Citizen Schools, Redwood City, CA; Marilou Seiff, Marine Science Institute, Redwood City, CA; and Maya Soetoro-Ng, Our Public School, Houston, TX