For Love or Money?
If you don’t have the funds to write a million-dollar check but yearn to do more than ladle soup, there’s a new way to give—and receive. JOSH GREENE follows one foundation redefining the art of community service.
The old adage “the more you give, the more you get” has quite a broad application. It’s often used in reference to work, relationships and even fitness regimens. There isn’t always a direct correlation between hours at the office and financial compensation, emotional honesty and a healthy love life, or countless hours on the treadmill and a killer body. But when it comes to matters of philanthropy, effort and satisfaction are pretty evenly aligned.
It seems slightly cynical to assess a gift in terms of what the giver receives in turn, but it’s obvious there’s a symbiotic relationship. Certainly, in the world of big-ticket giving, the cause-and-effect is clear. For a cool $500,000, you can have the Children’s Ambulatory Treatment Center at UCSF named after you. A $200,000 gift to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts isn’t enough to procure your own gallery, but it ensures that your name will be tastefully emblazoned somewhere in the building. A $10,000 donation to the San Francisco Public Library gets your moniker engraved on a plaque in the main branch’s foyer. In addition to the fulfillment that accompanies such altruism and the prestige of having your generosity recognized in stone, steel or glass, you gain access to a network of likeminded peers that could reap social and professional benefits. But how many of us really have that kind of cash to spare?
In 2003, my charitable contributions totaled $120. KQED was the beneficiary of my openhandedness; I kicked down $10 per month to support the local public radio and TV station. At this level of giving, there are no black-tie receptions, no Josh Greene hospital wings and nary a networking opportunity. For my lowly pledge, I was rewarded with a KQED commuter mug and a complimentary subscription to San Francisco magazine. Doling out such minimal amounts clearly wouldn’t be translating into any social or professional windfalls.
So where does this leave those of us who yearn to give (and receive) but can’t afford to break the bank? In the trenches, that’s where. Hands-on volunteer opportunities are plentiful in the Bay Area. You’re almost certain to find a cause that meshes with your interests—whether you want to rescue baby ducklings and egrets; prepare lunches for those in need; collect some of the 861,000 pounds of trash found on our state’s beaches; or play foster parent to a golden retriever. While plaques and public recognition may not be forthcoming, personal satisfaction would surely be.
But if neither drafting a hefty check to the charity du jour nor rolling up your shirtsleeves and performing hands-on labor is the answer, there’s a third option: white-collar volunteering. In San Francisco, the Taproot Foundation is at the forefront of this new brand of giving.
AARON HURST, TAPROOT’S 29-YEAR-OLD founder and president, seems genetically predisposed for a life in philanthropy. His grandfather, Joseph E. Slater, a high-ranking state department official in the Kennedy administration, wrote the blueprint for the Peace Corps. It’s hard to imagine Hurst— who’s partial to stylish plaid trousers, tucked-in oxford shirts and Prada-like shoes—as a self-described “hippie brat.” But as a child, he moved every couple of year to follow his free-spirited parents in their pursuits of astrology, belly-dancing and Tibetan Buddhism. While his folks were busy finding themselves, Hurst’s grandfather filled in as a mentor and source of stability.
Being of service was a value instilled in the boy at an early age. “To have a job in the private sector was bad. ‘Business’ was a dirty word,” he recalled.
As much as he revered his grandfather, Hurst ended up veering slightly from his altruistic path: Mostly out of curiosity, but perhaps partly out of rebellion, he joined the dot-com boom. He became employee number seven at Iown.com and later number 23 at Isyndicate.com. Both companies had admirable social missions—the former was a home buyer’s advocate, the latter a site aimed to empower independent writers, photographers and cartoonists—but as Hurst readily admits, he was just logging experiences that he planned to eventually take back to the nonprofit world. Prior to the bust, he did some exploring and discovered that there weren’t too many full-time nonprofit gigs that could accommodate his skill set. What he did find was that his dot-com cronies and their talents were a virtually untapped resource. That assessment sowed the seeds of the Taproot Foundation.
Hurst’s idea was this: to create a foundation that made it easier for professionals to donate their specific expertise to the nonprofit world and smoothly integrate volunteerism into their lives and careers. He envisioned a database of pro-bono laborers, selected for their commitment and skills—graphic designers, marketing executives, software developers, wordsmiths and other private sector pros—who would provide top-flight services for various nonprofits exhibiting a critical need. Such contributions, which would range from creating a website or brochure to database management and branding analysis, ordinarily come with a lofty price tags of up to $50,000—a price few nonprofits can afford. For groups who met the criteria, Taproot would provide these services free of charge.
In 2001, 40 years after his grandfather outlined the idea that would eventually become the Peace Corps, Hurst launched Taproot. The response was almost immediate; the foundation received approximately 100 applications for its first round of gratis services. For Community Awareness & Treatment Services (CATS), a San Francisco nonprofit that serves severely “at-risk” homeless populations and was facing major government-budget cuts, a five-person team of Taproot volunteers created a brochure with an estimated value of $15,000. As a result, the group’s individual donor campaigns are expected to increase 50 percent over last year. For the San Rafaelbased Alliance for Technology Access (ATA), which assists children and adults with disabilities in using technology tools, a Taproot team created a press kit that would ordinarily cost around $25,000. With its new marketing materials, ATA attracted new funders and increased its public awareness. In 2002, Taproot’s first year, the foundation provided services with a market value of $500,000. This year’s grants have exceeded $2,000,000. Hurst is in the finishing stages of opening a New York branch. Clearly, his idea is working.
Hurst talks a good game. “Taproot comes out of the vision of the Peace Corps,” he told me. “The only way to bridge communities is to create a peer-to-peer situation.” After five minutes with him, I was convinced that Taproot was doing a world of good for nonprofits. But what exactly was it doing for its volunteers?
LIKE HIS GRANDFATHER BEFORE HIM, Hurst has drawn up a plan for a service based organization that aims to link two cultures. And like the Peace Corps, Taproot’s success is wholly dependent on its volunteers. Though these unpaid workers may vary in their employment status and professional experiences, they all come to Taproot to fill their own particular needs. At a recent volunteer orientation that took place in a borrowed 21st-floor conference room in the Financial District, attendees ranged from a recent college grad looking to pad his resume and fill his time during a stingy job market to a Stanford MBA who was earning a tidy sum in the corporate world and hoping to shift her karma by giving back.
For a firsthand look at the Taproot process, I hitched a ride down to Morgan Hill, half an hour south of San Jose, with Natalie Long, a volunteer program officer. She was attending a creative briefing with the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center (WERC), a Taproot grantee that takes in injured bobcats, horned owls and other native fauna, restores their health and then returns them to the wild. During the 90- minute drive, the ebullient 32-year-old blonde briefed me on her impressive professional accomplishments: five years with Accenture, a marketing internship with Apple, an MBA from Northwestern University and a stint as a product manager with BlueLight.com. When Long spoke of her paid work, her tone was relatively subdued, but when we shifted gears to her nonprofit involvement, she became quite animated. “The foundation allows me to channel my untapped creativity and motivation toward something I’m much more passionate about,” she said. “It’s simply a lot more fun to talk about rehabilitating bobcats than it is to stress over why some bug in our product is causing orders to error out.”
Shortly after arriving at the meeting, which was held in WERC’s offices in the split-level home of executive director Sue Howell, we met one of the “bobcat mothers.” Clad in a camo jumpsuit and a felt mask complete with marker-drawn whiskers, the feline facsimile informed us on the fine points of playing mommy to wayward cats. But the meeting that ensued wasn’t just about wildlife. Anthony Alles—a 38-year-old, semi-retired, Jaguar-driving, self-described dog and cat lover and Taproot’s designated marketing manager for the project—issued Howell a slew of questions about her target market and what she was hoping to gain for her organization. And although Alles, who’d started a few companies and previously served as Cisco’s director of product marketing, was an energetic presence, it was the petite, unassuming Howell who was the driving force. Whether she was talking about how to survive on a $130,000 yearly operating budget or trying to save a wounded butterfly, she spoke with a type of earnest compassion that can’t be too frequent in the corporate world. It would be tough to imagine Alles having a similarly passionate encounter with Cisco CEO John Chambers.
I witnessed a similar dynamic at a kickoff meeting to discuss Taproot’s upcoming work for the Berkeley-based Center for Independent Living (CIL). The 30-year-old organization offers a range of services to people with disabilities, including job referrals, peer support and housing assistance. Inside CIL’s makeshift conference room, three staff members and four Taproot volunteers sat around a veneered table and began the meeting with introductions. When it was executive director Jan Garrett’s turn, the 41- year-old matter-of-factly explained that she had been born without arms and legs, had been “mainstreamed” by her parents, graduated from Scripps College, picked up a law degree and worked for the Department of Justice. The experience was an eye-opener for Megan Brueger, a rookie Taproot volunteer and the branding strategist for the project. The day after the meeting, Brueger (a freelancer for OWNP Advertising) reflected, “Last night made me realize CIL isn’t some ‘cause’ that Jan is behind, but rather her life.” After spending more than 10 years in the world of advertising, she explained, “You get burnt out on corporations that are only out to make a buck and sell more product that people don’t need.”
I spoke with multiple Taproot volunteers about their reasons for donating their time and what they hoped to get out of their pro-bono labor. Their responses could easily be used as Taproot marketing taglines. Charles Oey, a straight-laced freelance graphic designer, said, “Apart from the purely altruistic motivation of wanting to help, Taproot was an opportunity for me to diversify my portfolio and use skills that I know I possess, but haven’t had the chance to exercise.” Oey’s design talents were being put to use creating a brochure for the wildlife research center. Gayle Semrad, a no-nonsense bigtime marketing exec who’s built programs for such Fortune 500 companies as Intel and Hewlett Packard, said, “Work was killing me. I wanted to put something in my life that was giving something back toward a greater good.” For Taproot, Semrad has served as a program officer, putting together teams of volunteers for nonprofits that include CIL and the Aquatic Outreach Institute. Seth Cohen, an out-of-work software product marketing manager with a bone-dry sense of humor, said, “What I was looking for was an opportunity to meet new and interesting people, to be exposed to not-for-profit groups in the Bay Area, to do some good for others and to keep my marketing talents sharp through practice.” His role in Taproot: project manager for the wildlife research center’s brochure.
After the bobcat meeting in Morgan Hill, Natalie Long was pretty fired up. On the drive back, we chatted about Sue Howell’s inspiring character, the dynamics of Long’s Taproot team and her own personal ambitions and goals. About a year after the economy tanked, she was laid off by BlueLight.com and spent three months traveling around Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. The soul-searching that began in more exotic locales has continued to this day. According to Long, her work with Taproot has allowed her to gain a type of fulfillment that she has yet to find in her paying jobs. She summed it up by saying, “The bottom line is, it makes you feel better. These organizations need you more than your job ever could.”
As we exited 101 onto Ninth Street, Long checked her messages. Her boss hadn’t called, and she let out an audible sigh of relief. But she wouldn’t get off so easily. Two minutes later, she fielded the phone call she’d hoped to avoid. As Long spoke, her tone was of a serious nature, devoid of the sort of emotion and enthusiasm that I had been privy to for the past five hours. Just like that, she was back to work.
