Blog
Clients in Conversation: Building on a Shared Vision, Part II
April 17, 2014
This article was originally published in the Winter 2014 RSF Quarterly.
Interview with Mark Herrera, Senior Manager, Client Development
Allegra Allesandri Pfiefer transformed a struggling school into the first public Waldorf-inspired high school in the nation. Laura Summer runs a successful year-long arts education program that is completely tuition-free. Both women have experience with the challenges of starting new initiatives that defy others notions of normal. In each case, strong communities played a vital role in their success.
Click here for Part I
Mark: Laura, I’m interested in this model that you have created for sustaining support for your work in a gift economy. Can you talk about how it’s working?
Laura: Free Columbia runs completely on contributions from many individuals, including our students. Sometimes, I do wonder if it’s going to be working next month or next year, but so far, it is.
As a teacher, that gives me this amazing feeling of freedom. I can give the very best that I have to my students and it isn’t tied to what I owe someone for paying me a lot of money. You actually get to teach out of what you know is right for your students in the moment. It’s such a strong feeling that I have given up teaching in any other model.
I’ve also stopped selling paintings for money. We started two years ago having what we call an art dispersal, where we hang up lots of paintings and make them available to the community. Community members can become stewards of the art, which means they can take the art and keep it for as long as they want. They can pass it onto somebody else or give it back to the artist whenever they choose to.
photo courtesy of Free Columbia
It was an amazing experience when we first did it. People just came and took the paintings off the walls and took them home. They emailed us about where they were hanging them and sent us pictures. It was as if, until then, the paintings had been out of work and unemployed.
This has also become part of our financial model because people can contribute money to the endeavor and to support the artists.
Mark: Allegra, you’ve been cultivating this really practical and deep approach to educating. What have been some of the highlights or transformative moments for you?
Allegra: I’m actually inspired by some of the parallels that I’m hearing in what Laura has said. I’m reminded of a story about my students. They have a main lesson block in health and nutrition. In one activity, they harvest chard and kale from our garden and prepare it with eggs from our chickens. Students told us that they went home and cooked it all week long for their families—the most green vegetable they could remember eating.
It’s like the artwork going out into the communities, it’s this learning that the students realize, “Here’s something I grew in my own garden at school. We planted it, we harvested, and now, I can take it home and nourish my family.” When that happens, you have families that are being supported by what’s going on in the classroom.
The art of our education is leaving the school campus with these kids and going into their homes—it’s bringing health, nutrition, and love of learning home.
In the first year of the school, I would go into classrooms to visit. The classrooms were chaotic. There was little respect for the teachers, for the learning environment, for the physical space. I walked into one classroom and greeted the teacher in the class. And one girl looked at me and said, “Why are you always smiling?” I thought, “Uh-oh, this is a really hard question to answer, because she thinks I’m happy.” I was actually sad. I wasn’t sure that this experiment of bringing Waldorf methods into the public sector was going to work. I had to think long and hard before I could answer truthfully. I replied, “Well, I love teenagers. I’ve always worked in high schools; it’s the place in education I love. And that’s why I’m here.” And I literally felt like the earth shifted. The kids realized I was serious. They believed that they were in a new kind of environment where learning could be interesting and fun, and where adults would listen respectfully to them. This experience taught me about the incredible potency of Waldorf education. The potency is held in the relationships, the intentions, and the vision that we share which is transforming our communities.
Mark: To wrap up, is there anything that you’ve heard from one another that has really resonated with you?
Allegra: I really like hearing Laura talk about the movement of art in the community. I’ve heard John Bloom speak about the healthy movement of money. And I think it’s true for art and other things. In my world, it might look like trying things, experimenting, not holding fast to certain protocols about education or what it’s supposed to be, but rather exploring through relationship and a safe environment. This picture of movement and flow in an educational setting is really resonating for me.
Laura: Throughout this conversation I’m hearing surety that this deep level of intention does work. It isn’t just that it works in a small, limited, cloistered place where everybody has the same values or the same financial background. It can work for diverse groups of people. And when it does work, it can transform people and allow them to see things that they couldn’t see before.
Allegra Allesandri Pfiefer is the principal of George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science, the first public Waldorf-inspired high school in the nation. She is a graduate of Sacramento Waldorf School and a founder and teacher of San Francisco Waldorf High School. Allegra earned her doctorate at UC Davis as part of her mission to bring Waldorf education to a wide variety of educational institutions. Sacramento City Unified School District serves 45,000 students and is the only school district in the US to support three public Waldorf-inspired schools educating over 1000 school children.
Laura Summer is co-founder with Nathaniel Williams of Free Columbia, an arts initiative that includes a year-long program based on the fundamentals of painting as they come to life through spiritual science. She has been working with questions of color and contemporary art for 25 years and her approach is influenced by Beppe Assenza, Rudolf Steiner, and by Goethe’s color theory. Her work, to be found in private collections in the US and Europe, has been exhibited at the National Museum of Catholic Art and History in New York City and at the Sekem Community in Egypt.
Clients in Conversation: Building on a Shared Vision, Part I
April 15, 2014
This article was originally published in the Winter 2014 RSF Quarterly.
Interview with Mark Herrera, Senior Manager, Client Development
Allegra Allesandri Pfiefer transformed a struggling school into the first public Waldorf-inspired high school in the nation. Laura Summer runs a successful year-long arts education program that is completely tuition-free. Both women have experience with the challenges of starting new initiatives that defy others notions of normal. In each case, strong communities played a vital role in their success.
Mark: Laura what are some of the successful practices you have used in building your community at Free Columbia?
Laura: Well, it depends on what you mean by community. We have a small community made up of our students and teachers. Then, there’s our supporting community—the people that care about us. These people provide funding and participate in whatever way they can.
Building community in the two circles is different. In the smaller circle, we take between eight and ten full-time painting students and five to seven puppetry interns for a full-time program, all day long, four days a week. In that community, we’re really working closely together. We do biography work. We do group observations of the artistic work. We have a meal together at least once a week. We sing together. We do eurythmy together. All of these things really help to build this core group and a feeling of community.
Our larger circle extends quite broadly. There’s a circle of local people who are interested in the work. They send us donations. Sometimes, they come to a short course. But a lot of them just want this mission to work. And then there are people all across the country, and even in Europe, who are watching out for us. We also have larger public events including an end-of-the-year arts show, and puppet shows in all the public schools in our town. We hold these events to build our visibility and to give something back to our community.
Mark: Allegra, how have you been able to successfully build community at Washington Carver High School?
Allegra: It starts with having a successful practice. Having a clear vision and mission that is shared by people is what creates a community.
I stepped into a community where some of the leaders had grassroots experience and a shared idea of building a public Waldorf-inspired high school. My work began with clarifying what this high school would look like.
One of the communities I work with is the teachers. We meet weekly to do activities like singing, eurythmy, and storytelling so that we can practice elements of Waldorf education together and learn from and about each other. Building a strong working relationship as a faculty was essential so that we could communicate this vision to the larger community.
And more than half of our students and families aren’t necessarily familiar with Waldorf methods. They are involved because Carver is small and safe, and they share the part of our vision that values relationships and human development.
Archery is one of several unique extracurricular programs offered at the George Washington Carver School of Arts & Science
We’ve done a lot of work in these last six years to build our community of parents and students by celebrating together. A common practice is getting together regularly for events where students perform so that families can live some of the educational experience that their students have had.
Mark: What are some of the challenges or obstacles that you’ve faced in building these communities?
Laura: Free Columbia is still a small initiative. It’s interesting that people often come to the full-time program, and they don’t really understand what this year’s worth of artistic process is about. Some of them have no relationship with Rudolf Steiner’s work at all, but they are searching for something, and that draws them here.
So it means that we have to be extremely specific about the expectations we have for the students. We don’t have any set tuitions, we’re not accredited, and we have this donation-based financial model—people think it’s pretty crazy. But once they get involved, it becomes clear. It’s just reaching that level of understanding within our community that is really challenging.
Allegra: One of the biggest obstacles that we had was inheriting a failing school. It was a huge challenge because we had kids and teachers who were frustrated, angry, and marginalized. I had to learn how to absorb that and build our own community with them. We did that by fostering relationships. We treated people with kindness and respect. And people repeatedly said, “Are you for real? We’ve never been treated like this in a public school before.”
I liked what Laura said regarding being really clear about the program. Within my district, our sister schools ridiculed us because we weren’t understood. As we clarified who we were by building a community, by showing growth, both academically and in enrollment, it became clear to our peers that this was working in the public sector, it wasn’t just a private school model.
Another layer of challenges was in meeting district, state, and federal guidelines and requirements. In America, Waldorf schools have grown up and matured in total freedom as private schools. There was a lot of concern about these government regulations removing that freedom.
By demonstrating the education, the curriculum, teacher expectations, student expectations, and outcomes, we have made it clear to the public education system and our private school peers that the public Waldorf-inspired schools are valid, valuable, and thriving educational environments.
Laura: It’s so interesting because what you have created is the strongest answer to objections that a Waldorf school can’t exist within the public sector.
People told me that my students wouldn’t appreciate something unless they paid for it. Until we tried it, I didn’t have a great response to that. But once we established this new model and it worked, then that was the best response to our critics. The living example is so powerful.
Click here for Part II
Allegra Allesandri Pfiefer is the principal of George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science, the first public Waldorf-inspired high school in the nation. She is a graduate of Sacramento Waldorf School and a founder and teacher of San Francisco Waldorf High School. Allegra earned her doctorate at UC Davis as part of her mission to bring Waldorf education to a wide variety of educational institutions. Sacramento City Unified School District serves 45,000 students and is the only school district in the US to support three public Waldorf-inspired schools educating over 1000 school children.
Laura Summer is co-founder with Nathaniel Williams of Free Columbia, an arts initiative that includes a year-long program based on the fundamentals of painting as they come to life through spiritual science. She has been working with questions of color and contemporary art for 25 years and her approach is influenced by Beppe Assenza, Rudolf Steiner, and by Goethe’s color theory. Her work, to be found in private collections in the US and Europe, has been exhibited at the National Museum of Catholic Art and History in New York City and at the Sekem Community in Egypt.
RSF Support of Regional Food Systems Bolstered by $750,000 Investment
April 11, 2014
RSF Social Finance (RSF) is pleased to announce a new $750,000 investment in its Program Related Investing Fund (PRI) from the Surdna Foundation. With these funds, RSF will continue to expand its pioneering financing program for sustainable food businesses.
“We have seen a huge need for debt financing for social enterprises working to connect farmers to institutional buyers and Surdna’s investment enables us to increase our funding to organizations that would otherwise have trouble finding financing,” says Taryn Goodman, Director of Impact Investing at RSF. “RSF is often the first organization willing to provide debt to these organizations due to our ability to understand their unique financing needs.”
Designed for foundations eager to participate in program related investing but without in-house capacity to do so, the RSF PRI Fund offers a streamlined means of recycling program payouts through low-interest loans to fully charitable projects. This Fund enables RSF to provide equipment financing and lines of credit to organizations that don’t fully meet their traditional lending criteria. The Fund has a minimum $100,000 investment, a five year term, and returns 1%. The Fund lends out $50,000 to up to 10% of the total fund to any one borrower.
Launched in 2010, the PRI Fund has been a crucial vehicle in RSF’s ability to support the growth of regional, sustainable, and just food systems. The Fund focuses on building infrastructure to support food businesses with the majority of loans going to organizations working on aggregation, distribution, and processing. Without this more flexible vehicle, RSF would not be able to support the smaller organizations that have less of a track record, yet play a major role in this space. Another benefit, RSF is also able to grow with the organization, with the hopes of eventually graduating these loans to their Social Enterprise Lending Program, as was the case with innovative food hub, Common Market Philadelphia.
“Surdna’s mission is to foster sustainable communities,” said Michelle Knapik, director of Surdna’s Sustainable Environments program. “To achieve this, we are supporting efforts to move toward ‘next generation infrastructure’ by improving transit systems, making buildings more energy efficient, better managing our water systems, and building and rebuilding regional food infrastructure – the last of which aligns with RSF’s PRI Fund. We know that RSF is not just a financial partner in this work, but a deeply dedicated intellectual partner as well.”
In 2013 alone, RSF made PRI loans to four social enterprises and already has inquiries above and beyond that for 2014. In order to support this growing demand, RSF hopes to raise another $2-5 million in the next year.
30 Years of RSF Social Finance
April 7, 2014
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We are thrilled to kick off our 30th anniversary celebration this month with the latest RSF Quarterly, which reflects on RSF’s transformation since 1984. Read insights from John Bloom, RSF’s Senior Director of Organizational Culture, on what it means to be inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner and how we remain committed to transformation. Guest essayist and author Charles Eisenstein expounds on investing in the ecological age and how such investment could be rethought of as gift. RSF community members share how they’ve transformed the way they work with money. Also, take a look at how we have grown over the last 30 years in a History of RSF timeline.
We would like to thank all of our clients, partners, and friends who have been a part of reaching this exciting milestone as a leader in the growing field of social finance. Keep an eye out for more 30th celebration news, here, on the Reimagine Money blog.
To download an electronic copy of the Quarterly, click here.
RSF Funds Development of Sebastopol Charter School’s New Campus
March 27, 2014
RSF Social Finance (RSF) is pleased to announce a new loan to The Charter Foundation, the fundraising organization that supports the K-8 Waldorf-inspired Sebastopol Charter School. RSF was selected by the Foundation as their lender of choice to finance the acquisition of a 20-acre property and the construction of a permanent, unified campus for the entire school population on the new site
Sebastopol Charter School was founded by Greg Haynes and Ursula Kroettinger, two former Waldorf school administrators who wished to bring Waldorf education to their community without the financial barriers of private school tuition. Waldorf education, developed by Rudolf Steiner in 1919, is an arts-rich approach to education that focuses on teaching the whole child – head, hands, and heart. Waldorf schools have traditionally been private and more readily accessible to middle and upper class families. However, a shift is occurring: according to the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education, the number of Waldorf-inspired public schools has risen quickly, from around a dozen in 2000 to over fifty in 2014, making this education model available to far more children regardless of family income.
“RSF is inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner and we believe in the importance of supporting creativity and human spirit,” says Ted Levinson, Director of Lending at RSF. “We have a long history of supporting Waldorf education in private schools and seeing these values transferred to the public education system is an important step in developing the next generation of inspired leaders.”
As one of the first Waldorf-inspired charter schools in the nation, Sebastopol Charter opened its doors in 1995 to its pioneering kindergarten class. Each subsequent year another grade was added as the previous class advanced, until the first 8th grade class graduated in 2005. With the school’s rapid expansion, The Charter Foundation was founded with the mission of establishing and supporting a permanent, Waldorf-inspired charter school.
“Since the school’s founding nearly two decades ago we’ve searched for a permanent campus site that would provide our students the spaciousness to move with freedom and to explore and learn through their natural environment,” says Chris Topham, Executive Director of Sebastopol Charter. “Since that time, RSF has been a key partner in helping us realize that dream, first providing the backing needed to develop our current urban campus, and now supporting our efforts to take our school to the next level at our new, unified campus.”
RSF initially provided a loan to the Foundation in 2000 to help build the school’s downtown campus, housing the third through eighth grades, while the K-2 program is housed on a separate site leased from the chartering district. The downtown facility, now owned free and clear by the Foundation, has served its purpose as a temporary home and investment property while the school searched for the ideal site for its new home. This new RSF loan has been used to acquire a 20-acre parcel of land, and will support the development of the first phase of the new campus which will finally unify the entire school.
Sebastopol Charter School has been successful in recruiting and retaining high quality teachers, providing a full and rich Waldorf curriculum including strings, handwork, woodwork, Spanish, games, social inclusion and eurythmy, and attracting a dedicated and informed parent body. As a result, Sebastopol Charter is now widely regarded as one of the leaders in public Waldorf education nationwide. Its success has encouraged scores of other public schools to offer a Waldorf-inspired education to any child, regardless of the ability to pay.
About The Charter Foundation
The Charter Foundation is the fundraising organization for Sebastopol Charter School, a public charter school in Sebastopol, California. Established by the school’s founders in 1998, the Foundation is charged with the mission of supporting Sebastopol Charter School in providing both a full Waldorf program and in establishing a permanent, unified, and spacious campus. www.thecharterfoundation.org
Hana Health: Connecting the Dots between Local Food and Healthy Lifestyles
March 25, 2014
From Maui’s main population center of Kahului, drive east along the island’s rugged northeastern coastline for about two hours, crossing over 40 one-lane bridges, and you’ll find the remote town of Hana. Its pristine beaches and traditional village culture make Hana one of Hawaii’s most unspoiled gems. But seclusion sometimes brings challenges: like in the mid-1990s, when Hana’s state-run medical center ran out of money and planned to shut down, leaving the community without access to healthcare.
Concerned community members and legislators met that challenge by successfully bringing Hana Health, a private healthcare provider, to the area in 1997. Since then, this non-profit has been the sole provider of family practice medicine, dental care, preventive healthcare, and urgent and emergent care for the region’s 2,200 residents. Hana Health has also grown to become much more than a healthcare center: it now models and promotes a local, sustainable food system that creates jobs, builds community, and prevents illness.
INSPIRATION
“Hana Health was born out of pure necessity,” notes Hana Health Executive Director Cheryl Vasconcellos, who joined the organization after 13 years with Planned Parenthood Hawaii. “I thought the small community would allow me to be creative and have a big impact on the local economy and community health,” she says.
That has proved to be true. Over the years, the organization has grown to play an even deeper role in the community than its original mission envisioned. Hana Health took on the challenge of improving people’s lives by educating them about the link between good health and eating right—and providing accessible options.
INNOVATION
Vasconcellos realized early on, when funding sources reneged on their commitments, that Hana Health needed a reliable revenue source. “I didn’t want to live and die by the grant,” she says. “We needed to look at our own resources; we needed to be entrepreneurial.”
The answer: Hana Fresh Farms, which Vasconcellos and the Hana Health board conceived as a way to both serve the mission and earn income. The farm began in 2005 with a one-acre vegetable garden behind Hana Health’s clinic. Today, the venture encompasses a nine-acre organic farm growing more than 100 varieties of organic fruits and vegetables, and a farmer’s market that sells the produce and healthy prepared meals. In addition, Hana Health integrates diet and health education with after-school wellness and physical fitness classes as well as incentive programs such as farmer’s market discount days and farmer’s market gift certificates for patients after preventive health screenings.
When the farm began generating a surplus, Vasconcellos researched potential buyers for organic produce and found a huge demand. They now sell produce to Whole Foods Market, Mana Foods (Hawaii’s largest independent natural food store), local restaurants, and smaller establishments.
Part of the Hana Health vision was to create a Hana Fresh Nutrition Center, which would enable Hana Fresh to sell prepared meals and “value added” products, such as jams and salad dressings, at the farmer’s market. “As demand for prepared meals at the farmer’s market increased, it became glaringly apparent that our 100-square-foot kitchen and outdoor tent were inadequate,” Vasconcellos says.
Hana Health secured funding for the building, site work, and equipment from government grants, but they weren’t enough to complete the project. Enter RSF Social Finance. Ted Levinson, RSF’s director of lending, was on vacation in Hawaii when he came across Hana Fresh products at Whole Foods. After learning about Hana Health’s model and mission, Levinson called Vasconcellos to inquire about their funding needs.
“RSF contacted us exactly when we needed them,” she says. “We had begun construction to avoid losing some of our grants, but didn’t have enough to finish. Financing from the state didn’t come through as expected and local banks wouldn’t provide us with a loan. I don’t know where we would be if RSF hadn’t come to the rescue.”
IMPACT
T
he 1300-square-foot Hana Fresh Nutrition Center opened its doors in August 2012. The fully equipped commercial kitchen has allowed the organization to double the number of prepared meals it produces to 54,000 annually. Farm revenue grew by 150 percent from 2009 to 2012. Hana Health now has 40 employees, up from 29 in early 2012.
Hana Fresh Farms and Hana Fresh Nutrition Center are cornerstones of Hana Health’s approach to preventive healthcare and an integral part of the Hana community. Collectively, they promote healthy lifestyle choices, empower individuals to take responsibility for their own well-being, provide employment and training opportunities for residents, increase food security, and contribute to Hana’s overall economic vitality.
Next up: Hana Health is developing a prepared meal program for patients with diabetes and other chronic health conditions that can be improved with dietary changes.
“Given our remote location, we didn’t have organizations we could model ourselves after,” Vasconcellos says. “We had to be innovative and creative. We’d love to serve as a model for other healthcare providers who want to serve their communities by promoting healthy lifestyles and a healthy economy.”
VITALS
Company Name: Hana Health
HQ: Hana, Maui, Hawaii
Impact area: Food & Agriculture
RSF relationship: Social Enterprise Lending Program
Community served: Hana
Employees: 40
Revenue/budget: $3.2M
RSF Capital Management Honored on B Corp‘s ‘Best for the World’ List
March 19, 2014
Today, RSF Capital Management was recognized for creating the most positive overall social and environmental impact by the non-profit B Lab with the release of the third annual ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list. The ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list honors 92 businesses worldwide that earned an overall score in the top 10% of all Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of a company’s impact on its workers, community, and the environment. Honorees were recognized among micro, small, and mid-sized businesses.
RSF Capital Management is a wholly owned subsidiary of RSF Social Finance and was formed in 2008 to manage all of RSF’s lending activity to for-profit social enterprises. RSF Capital Management provides senior working capital and subordinated term debt to businesses meeting a rigorous social enterprise profile.
Each honored company is a Certified B Corporation. They use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems and have met rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Today there are over 970 certified B Corporations, across 60 industries and 32 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business.
“Employees, consumers, investors, and policy makers increasingly want to support companies that create a positive impact in the world and the Best for the World honorees are the best of the best,” said Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab, the non-profit organization that certifies B Corporations and governs the independent third party standard used to generate the comparable assessment of corporate impact. “It’s particularly inspiring that 21% of the 2014 honorees are first time winners but long time B Corps. They’re winning the race to the top.”
Other highlighted companies include CDI Lan, a Brazilian education and training company generating income and employability in low income communities through internet cafes, d.light design, a manufacturer and distributor of solar lighting and power products providing access to reliable, affordable, renewable energy for nearly 30 million people in 60 countries, and Sunrise Banks, a Minnesota community bank supporting affordable housing, small business development, and not-for-profits.
Click here for more information and to see the full list of honorees.
RSF Makes a New Loan to 18th Street Arts Center
March 17, 2014
RSF Social Finance (RSF) is pleased to announce a new loan to 18th Street Arts Center (18SAC), a non-profit artist residency program that provokes public dialogue through contemporary art-making. This loan will allow 18SAC to refinance their existing mortgage and provide funds for reserves. As 18SAC celebrates their 25th anniversary this year, RSF also looks forward to growing with the organization in the coming years as they build out the facilities to expand their programing – and gear up for another successful 25 years.
Artist residency programs exist around the world, in both urban and rural settings, serving anywhere from one artist to over 50 artists. The residency programs can appear in art museums, retreat centers, schools, universities, independent non-profits, or community centers and their focus can be multidisciplinary or focused on specific areas, such as visual arts, dance, theater, technology arts, writing, and more. According to The Alliance of Artist Communities, a leading association of artist residency programs, there are more than 500 programs in the US and thousands more across the world serving more than 10,000 artists domestically and 20,000 more worldwide. Most are multidisciplinary, like 18SAC, and are considered research and development labs for creative work.
Founded in 1988, 18th Street Arts Center has fostered and supported the work of many of Los Angeles’ most engaging and diverse artists, and has built bridges to artists communities around the globe. The organization values art-making as an essential part of a vibrant, just, and healthy society.
“18th Street Arts Center is a deeply committed social enterprise which plays an important role in the arts landscape both in Southern California and internationally,” explains Reed Mayfield, RSF Senior Lending Associate. “By providing affordable live/work studios and a creative space conducive to an artist’s professional development, 18SAC facilitates inter-cultural collaboration and community engagement in the arts.”
18SAC provides a hub for contemporary art through two program areas that reflect its mission: 1) A three-tiered Residency Program that fosters inter-cultural collaboration and dialogue and 2) A Public Events and Exhibition Program that focuses on engaging with the public and revealing the art-making process through exhibitions, events, talks, publications and other opportunities.
The Residency Program has three strategies to support artists. The first is a long-term residency for mentoring artists and ‘anchor’ organizations, which have helped to define the character and scope of the organization. The second is a mid-term residency, which is a three-year program for California artists to advance their careers. Lastly, they have a short-term residency for national or international visiting artists and curators who reside at 18SAC for one to three months.
The Public Events and Exhibition Program includes 18SAC’s signature Artist Labs series, the new Curator in Residence Program, presentations of emerging artists, and a lecture series featuring artists, curators, and scholars whose presentations relate to exhibition content and themes explored in residencies.
Housed in five buildings on its 1.25-acre site in Santa Monica, California, 18SAC provides a physical center that promotes collaboration and dialogue for contemporary art in a region characterized by its de-centralization. 18SAC is the largest arts organization in the City of Santa Monica, and is the largest artist residency program in Southern California.
“18th Street Arts Center is privileged to own this exceptional community resource and we are thrilled to have RSF as a new finance partner supporting the work we do for artists as we celebrate our 25th Anniversary,” says Jan Williamson, Executive Director at 18SAC. “RSF’s loan is helping us make plans for the next 25 years.”
About 18th Street Arts Center
Founded in 1988, 18th Street Arts Center (18SAC) is an artists’ residency program in Santa Monica, CA that provokes public dialogue through contemporary art-making. The organization values art-making as an essential part of a vibrant, just, and healthy society. Through artist residencies, 18SAC fosters inter-cultural collaboration and dialogue. 18SAC residencies, exhibitions, public events, talks, and publications encourage, showcase, and support the creation of contemporary art. 18SAC is a non-profit organization generously supported by its Board of Directors, individuals and corporate donors, private and corporate foundations, and government agencies. A corpus of over 50 dedicated volunteers support 18SAC’s visitor services, programs, and administrative functions. www.18thstreet.org
Seed Fund Grantee Highlight: Raphael Academy
March 14, 2014
by Ellie Lanphier
For its second academic year of operation, Raphael Academy a Camphill-inspired private school initiative serving students in grades six through twelve and young adults 18+ with intellectual and developmental disabilities, received a RSF Seed Fund grant of $1,000 to support and expand its vocational class offerings.
Raphael Academy’s mission is to meet its students with reverence and compassion for who they are and what they endure; and to educate them wholly, awakening their full potential as unique individuals, actively involved in life and engaged in community.
Specialty classes such as music, woodwork, handwork (weaving, knitting, crocheting, and embroidery), movement, gardening, ceramics, and painting cultivate a student’s motor skills in addition to enhancing sensory and visual perception skills. These classes complement Raphael Academy’s academic schedule, where students are immersed in an area of study, such as math, literature and science, for several weeks at a time, a method found to bring greater understanding of the material and to form a deeper relationship to the subject.
Raphael Academy promotes the practice of life skills as essential in order for their students to live the most independent life possible. Its vocational exercises focus on developing meaningful abilities to enable students to become proficient at completing everyday tasks and to develop employable skills, so that they may work towards a greater degree of self-reliance. An article by USA Today published in 2012 claims that one in three autistic young adults have no paid job experience, college, or technical school nearly seven years after high school graduation, a problem that Raphael Academy is working to remedy within its New Orleans community.
In addition to working with students daily throughout the school year, Raphael Academy strives to serve as a resource for parents and organizations in search of alternative and continuing education for youth and young adults with special needs. Their Young Adult Program, for students aged 18+, is designed to build social skills while teaching artistic vocational skills and independent and small group living skills. Topics include how to keep a budget and shop for food and other necessities, how to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle with weekly exercises and meal plans, and how to use public transportation and basic business skills critical to running Raphael Academy’s community café.
Jacqueline Case of Raphael Academy kindly provided an update on what the RSF Seed Fund grant made possible:
“So far we have put the money to good use by purchasing a mixer for the Young Adult Program, thread for our loom [which they used to produce 2 rugs!], and clay and glazes for student ceramic projects. Our Young Adults bake muffins weekly and then host a coffee and muffin sale on Friday mornings to both Raphael and the Waldorf School of New Orleans’ greater school community. So far the café has raised over $600 this school year. The YAP café also made a small donation to the Boulder, Colorado Kindergarten that was flooded this past September as New Orleans is no stranger to catastrophe!”
Thank you for your donations to the RSF Seed Fund, which make supporting organizations like Raphael Academy possible. To learn more about the Seed Fund, or to donate, please visit our website.
Ellie Lanphier is Program Associate of Philanthropic Services at RSF Social Finance
Seed Fund Grantee Highlight: Sustainable Economies Law Center
February 25, 2014
by Alex Haber
Building the next economy will take work in many sectors. RSF focuses on work with investors, donors, and entrepreneurs to build the direct, transparent relationships necessary to make economic renewal a reality. But as all these groups move their money and conduct their business with deep values, ossified legal structures will have to adapt and become more flexible to meet the needs of new economic relationships.
RSF Seed Fund grantee, Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC), works precisely at this intersection. SELC provides essential legal tools – education, research, advice, and advocacy – to support a transition to local, resilient economies. It focuses in many areas, including cooperatives, community-owned enterprises, co-housing, urban agriculture, barter, and local currencies.
Last year, SELC received a grant from the Seed Fund to support a new project that helps farmers interested in sustaining and growing their businesses through community-based or crowd-sourced financing methods. These methods allow local, small-scale investors to become financial stakeholders in an enterprise, and allow enterprises to seek capital from friends, family, and community members instead of high net-worth individuals or banks. With RSF’s funding, SELC was able to run an outreach campaign and application process for this new service to assess interest among farmers, and the response was very strong.
One of the most promising candidates was the South Central Farmers’ Cooperative (SCF), a worker-owned farm in California’s Central Valley. The coop grew around South Central Farm, a former fourteen-acre urban farm in South Central Los Angeles. After ten years of cultivating the land and building the community around it, the farmers were evicted in 2004 when the plot was slated for development. This eviction led to significant protests and civil disobedience, as well as an Academy Award nominated documentary, The Garden.
Since then, the South Central Farmers have been cultivating land in the Central Valley, and are currently looking to expand and help start other worker-owned farms. In order to do this, and to avoid the threat of eviction, SCF is looking to form a non-profit organization that could purchase land it could lease to worker-owned agricultural cooperatives, and to finance these land purchases through a public offering, so small investors, potentially from all over the state, could invest in these farms.
SELC and SCF hope to continue working together on this project as it evolves, and SELC is looking for funding to continue the work and develop a how-to guide for other farms interested in community-based and crowd-sourced funding.
Click here to learn more about how you can get involved with the Seed Fund to support great organizations like Sustainable Economies Law Center.
Alex Haber is Program Manager of Philanthropic Services
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