The Pro Bono Ethic Has Taken Root

By Melissa Paulo & Natalya Matusova on March 18, 2010 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several weeks ago, the Taproot Foundation's Pro Bono Action Tank Leadership Council hosted the Bay Area Corporate Pro Bono Workshop at Gap Inc.'s headquarters in San Francisco- the last stop on the Workshop circuit that had included Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

The workshop was designed to promote an active dialogue about pro bono service among the 50 Bay Area business leaders who were in attendance. The response was overwhelming. Karen Baker, the Secretary of Service and Volunteering and the State of California, gave an impassioned keynote address, highlighting the pro bono ethic and encouraging business leaders to get their employees engaged and hooked on the movement. The audience was enthusiastic when Jamie Hartman, Executive Director, Pro Bono Action Tank, gave her State of the Pro Bono Union address that highlighted the achievements of pro bono service thus far. Participants remained fully engaged as Carol Gutery, National Director, Pro Bono Action Tank walked through the eight different models of pro bono service delivery and shared resources around designing a strong pro bono program. 

Another highlight of the event was a lunchtime panel that featured representatives from Gap Inc, Deloitte, Salesforce.com, and Operation Access, who spoke about their active pro bono engagement programs, lending their best practices and learnings to their Bay Area peers. Notably, Operation Access is itself a nonprofit and successful recipient of pro bono services. Ben Aune, the CEO of Operation Access, is an advocate for the movement and has launched an impactful pro bono program for Operation Access employees.

Perhaps a sign that the economic tide is turning, the energy in the room was palpable as workshop participants discussed their triumphs and challenges, brainstormed strategies, and identified solutions around pro bono service. The conversation, to our great satisfaction, centered on " how to do pro bono well" rather than "why should we do pro bono." Pro Bono Action Tank's Business Value Flashcards were especially a big hit.

All in all, the formula for a successful corporate pro bono program is simple: identify what a company does best, think about how to apply it to the nonprofit sector, and work with available resources. Whether the goal is to build the capacity of a few local nonprofits or catalyze change in broad issues area, it is possible to build a pro bono program that is as effective and as innovative as the company running it.

Did you attend one of the Workshops? Does your company offer opportunities to do pro bono work? Do you have any tips or questions about how to best engage in pro bono service?


Melissa Paulo is a Western Region Development Fellow at the Taproot Foundation. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley's College of Letters and Science.

Natasha (Natalya) Matusova is the Product Development Fellow at the Taproot Foundation. She is a graduate of Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy. 

Fostering Catalytic Pro Bono

By Kate Wilson on March 11, 2010 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In August 2009, the Stanford Social Innovation Review published the article "Catalytic Philanthropy," describing the approach one entrepreneur took to reduce methamphetamine abuse in Montana. By researching the entry point into drug usage (teens who were unaware of the dangers of using meth), and implementing a strategic, well-resourced, targeted crusade to intervene at that level (a multi-million dollar, Hollywood produced, award-winning ad campaign which brutally depicts the downward spiral of a meth user), Thomas Siebel was able to make an almost immediate impact on reducing meth abuse in the state by more than 50%.

Since Siebel's campaign, the words "catalytic" and "philanthropy" have become favored buzzwords of social entrepreneurs. Never ones to be late to a social innovation party, the (non-meth-addicted) Pro Bono Junkies at Taproot Foundation were eager to see how this new movement could be augmented with pro bono service, and set to work on a Catalytic Pro Bono Cause: Foster Care.

Having polished their logo, web presence and marketing collateral through three previous Service Grants with Taproot Foundation, Youth Law Center (YLC) was well-versed in pro bono service. As a public interest advocacy group whose mission is to end abuse and maltreatment of children in the nation's foster care and justice systems and to ensure that these children are connected to families and communities, they were also also a major resource and expert in the foster care system. When YLC approached Taproot requesting help with messaging to "encourage the right families to foster," with hopes of rebranding foster care systematically, and not simply for their own organization, Taproot Foundation jumped on the opportunity.


Following the four steps outlined in the August 2009 Stanford Social Innovation Review article for successful Catalytic Philanthropy, Taproot Foundation and YLC set to work.

1. Take Responsibility for Achieving Results

By following the basic guidelines of the Key Messages & Brand Strategy Service Grant (Taproot's got about 250 of these projects under our belt already), we went into the project with a clear project scope and defined expectations on all sides of the pro bono consulting engagement - from the time commitment of YLC staff as well as the consultants, to a timeline for the execution of the project. We also began the project with confirmation that the end would be implemented not only by YLC but by a variety of government and nonprofit agencies working in the field.

2. Mobilize a Campaign for Change

In order to confirm that the new messages and brand position delivered by the Service Grant would resonate with the right audiences, Taproot Foundation's pro bono consulting team worked carefully with YLC to ensure that all benefiting organizations had channels to provide their input and feedback on the team's work. By making sure that the California Social Work Education Consortium, California Department of Social Services, County Welfare Directors, the Foster Parent Association and other agencies supporting the foster care system across the state were aware of the progress the Service Grant was making and able to discuss their thoughts and concerns directly with YLC, we were able to effectively manage the consulting team's bandwidth. This effective management enabled the Key Messages & Brand Strategy Service Grant to be completed on time.

3. Use All Available Tools

The collaborative nature of the Service Grant program lends itself to an "all hands on deck" approach - the consultants drew upon their expertise in marketing, branding, design, management, and other key areas to build professional-quality messaging about foster care. On the flip side, YLC and the other participating agencies brought their perspectives from decades of experience working in the field to help identify a target audience and the attributes of that audience to ensure that the new branding was focused and pointed them in the right direction.

4. Create Actionable Knowledge

The pro bono consulting team created vignettes to personify the new brand attributes they discovered. "I am up for the challenge," was personified through a brief story about a child who refused to eat anything his foster mother brought him. Through the foster mom's detective work - checking in with his teacher to see if and what he ate at lunchtime- she was able to find a solution get the child to eat dinner with his foster family. The vignette demonstrated the key principle identified by the consulting team: " Being a foster parent is definitely a challenge, but it's so rewarding to see your child thrive." The ideas were reinforced by this new tagline, "I am someone's hero. I am a foster parent."

The professional-quality deliverables created by this Service Grant are already being adopted eagerly by the groups involved. This compelling message will enable foster care agencies to better demonstrate the value that volunteering as a foster family presents - and by putting these new ideas into the form of an anecdote, the consultants have made these attributes accessible, communicable and memorable for a variety of audiences.

Because this Key Messages & Brand Strategy project is geared towards reworking the perception of foster care as a whole rather than focusing on one particular agency, the resulting impact of the Service Grant will be catalytic in rebranding the issue area and enhancing public perception of the importance of foster parenting. By improving their ability to match foster youth with compassionate, flexible families that are up to the challenge of being someone's hero, these agencies are positioned to provide foster children with the love and support they need to thrive.   

Structured for Creativity

By Laura Weiss on March 4, 2010 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently I was working with my colleagues on some organizational design issues. We were grappling with the classic question of how to scale an organization so that it's optimized for impact. As we explored ways in which other types of enterprises have dealt with this kind of growth challenge, I realized how easy it would be for the discussion to remain fixed on an analysis of traditional organizational models - functional, divisional matrix - in the quest to find one that suited us best.

Such organizational models emerged in the early part of the twentieth century to prevent chaos and to promote efficiency in growing businesses. Unfortunately, management theory today confirms that these very structures can become so rigid that they often prevent creativity even as they preserve order.

This all got me thinking - how much structure does a small organization really need? In mulling over this question, I found myself thinking about the work of the famous Swiss architect LeCorbusier (1887-1965) and his equally famous plan libre. Allow me to explain.

During the early days of LeCorbusier's career, buildings were designed to reflect traditional bearing wall construction, which often limited the placement of interior walls. But LeCorbusier changed all that with his most iconic design and lasting legacy to the architecture profession - the "Domino" house. Conceived in the 1920's, it promoted a simple grid of structural columns supporting horizontal concrete slabs. This organizing armature, if you will, allowed for a more important innovation to be realized - a "free plan" of undulating walls that could be placed in a variety of configurations to achieve spatial ingenuity. This was achievable because the walls were not limited by the structural grid but rather were enabled by it - the grid was "the function that gives the form to the interior space"¹. 

To bring the conversation back to that other kind of organizational structure - can we design nonprofits for efficiency as well as creativity? Can there be just enough structure in the right places to not only support but also enable the kinds of human interactions that will help them operate as creative entities? In an ever-changing world, organizations of all kinds must be both strategically adaptable as well as operationally efficient. To paraphrase management guru Gary Hamel, we must "build organizations where discipline and freedom aren't mutually exclusive"².

Organizations that enable some freedom of activity are naturally structured for creativity. They are often characterized less by prescribed roles, functions or departments and more by the types of human interactions their culture desires. Typically these are reflected in such things as a strong sense of community, interdisciplinary collaborations, a "one-team" mentality, and an open environment (both literally and figuratively).

So when thinking about what kind of structure is the right kind of structure, we need to ask ourselves what kins of behaviors are we trying to encourage so that our relationships - both internally and externally - deliver unique value and have real impact. Too much structure can mean too little freedom to explore and adapt. We need to prevent that from happening.

¹ Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 1960
² Gary Hamel, The Future of Management, 2007


Laura Weiss is the Vice President of Service Innovation at the Taproot Foundation. Laura comes to the Taproot Foundation after nine years as Associate Partner and Practice Director with the world-renowned design consultancy, IDEO, where she was an advocate for bringing a business perspective to the design process. A former licensed architect and educator, Laura holds and MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an MArch from Yale University and a BArch with honors from Cornell University.