TFA Strategic Articulation Map and Fund Development Plan

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Submited to

October 14th, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 Executive Summary

2.0 Environmental Scan

3.0 TFA MEMBERS PULSE CHECK

4.0 Strategic Articulation Map

5.0 Fund Development Plan

6.0 Fund Development Partner Deck (Appendix A)

7.0 Landscape Analysis (Appendix B)

8.0 More Vision Snapshots (Appendix C)

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), on behalf of the TransFormation Alliance (TFA), sought proposals from firms experienced in strategic planning and fundraising for non-profit development and sustainability, to support TFA in becoming an effective, productive and sustainable collaborative. Hummingbird Firm was chosen to develop a comprehensive and customized strategic framework that will serve as the new foundation for TFA’s sustained growth by laying out a roadmap for growth and continuing their mission. In order to become a sustainable collaborative TFA will need to increase and diversify funding by building capacity for operations, supporting existing nonprofit partners, and partnering with community members through grassroots grantmaking. This plan will specifically move the collaborative from data collection and program development into the execution of projects and/or systems change and influence strategies. At Hummingbird Firm, we are very thoughtful in how we frame facilitated meetings and strive for the experience to be energizing, not exhausting. Strategically planned breaks allow participants to sufficiently process information and check-in with their offices so that they can be fully engaged during the meeting. Wellness breaks which can include guided stretching and meditation allow for the last push of attention needed when you get to the afternoon portion of an all-day strategic planning session. This human-centered approach results in a productive meeting and a happy participant. We were able to create inspiring environments that encouraged TFA participants to share their ideas, thoughts, and opinions. The results of those highly involved facilitated discussions can be found below.

1. Mobility in our neighborhoods

2. Healthy living

3. Thriving artists, arts, and creative entreprenuers

4. Housing & Innovative Capital healthy safe affordable housing

5. Climate resilient quality of life

6. Jobs for economic advancement

7. Racial Equity

Strategic Priorities

1. Grow the

2. Be Bold, Audacious, and Disruptive

3. Engage our Community

4. Champion Equity

TransFormation Alliance

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

How to use this document:

Strategic planning is important to an organization because it provides a sense of direction and outlines measurable goals. Strategic planning is a tool that is useful for guiding day-to-day decisions and also for evaluating progress and changing approaches when moving forward. For the ongoing leadership of the TransFormation Alliance, this document should be used as a compass to ensure that TFA remains on course for the goals that it has identified and does not veer from its chosen visions and strategic priorities. During meeting discussions and planning sessions this document can be consulted as a reference to ensure that all visions and strategic priorities are being addressed. When accepting new member organizations, priority should be given to organizations that fill any gaps in vision representation and can help bolster any visions that need additional subject matter expertise. Here are five ways that the Executive Director can choose to implement this plan: 1. Communicate and align: Begin with clearly communicating the objectives, which should be driven by the company’s values and vision. Having clear goals with a comprehensive list of objectives creates guidelines that become the foundation for planning and growth. All member work should be in alignment. 2. Drive accountability: The Executive Director (ED) should be responsible for showing how the day-to-day work of each member organization impacts the success of TFA. The ED should inspire members to share their progress and work with each other. When the ED knows what all committees are working on and how each committee is being held accountable for their goals and their action plans, it will be easier to quantify vision and strategy. 3. Create focus: Research by the Franklin Covey Group across hundreds of organizations revealed that the bigger the number of goals executive leadership attempts to set and achieve, the less likely they will be achieved. With that in mind, member organizations need clear and aligned goals so that they can track their own progress and see how their work contributes to the rest of TFA. Regular, structured performance conversations should occur which discuss goals and progress. The existing Executive Committee meetings could be used for this purpose. 4. Be action-oriented: A common missed opportunity in executing organizational goals is not taking daily actions to reach the desired goal. Member organizations need to be more focused and aware of the practical step-by-step actions that will move TFA’s goals forward, and the ED needs to manage this process. Everyone’s daily and weekly focus should be on the very specific tasks they need to achieve to move their goals forward, and those goals need to align with TFA’s vision. 5. Track progress: Using project management software, even if it is just amongst the leadership team is essential to driving results. If you can’t track progress, you can’t really track progress.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 2.0

TransFormation Alliance (TFA) is a diverse collaboration of 30 plus partners ranging from government agencies, business partners, MARTA, and nonprofits, working together to amplify the impact of their existing resources. TFA’s members are dedicated to ensuring that opportunities and benefits provided by transit investment are made available to all residents of that community – present and future. Through a collaborative structure, TFA makes decisions about direction, activities and resource allocations. TFA has worked together in some format since 2012. All TFA members sign a memorandum of agreement, which centers on the impact of race, racism, and equity as leading guiding principles for working together. All members also agree that transit is central to the success of each organization’s mission and to access to opportunity. Other principles guiding their work include: • Leading with racial equity • Transparency • Respect The TransFormation Alliance is not a 501(c)(3); this was an intentional decision made by members who wanted the collaborative to not compete against each other for similar funding sources. Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) provides administrative and staff support and serves as a fiscal sponsor for TFA. The Executive Committee of TFA holds responsibility for leading the collaborative’s vision, and strategic direction, making decisions around internal operations, messaging, partnerships, and fundraising in consultation with the broader membership. Currently, their main source of funding is the Strong, Prosperous, And Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC). SPARCC is a three-year, $90 million initiative investing in local efforts at the city and regional levels to ensure that major new infrastructure investments lead to equitable and healthy opportunities for everyone. TFA also receives local support from The Kendeda Fund, MailChimp, and the Annie E. Casey Civic Site. SPARCC funding will end on December 2019. Hummingbird Firm was requested to undertake a comprehensive review of the TFA governance documents and work program, including but not limited to: 1. Governance structure • Strengthening Atlanta’s civic infrastructure • Sharing of resources & resource development

2. Guiding principles 3. Policy documents 4. Memorandum of Agreements 5. Existing members 6. 2017 list of accomplishments and 2018/2019 work plan.

In completing this environmental scan, we also reviewed the following additional folders/documents provided to us in a GoogleDoc shared drive: 1. Consultant Reference Documents 2. Communication Materials 3. Grant Applications

4. Policy Platform 5. TFA Academy 6. TFA Contact Lists 7. Lee Street Data

8. TFA Governance Items 9. TFA Work Plan Items

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

A review of those documents revealed that TFA could benefit from additional arts & culture partners as well as resident members at their collaborative table. Resident participation in the Executive Committee and membership would illustrate the inclusiveness that TFA is seeking to achieve. The Memorandum of Agreement which includes its guiding principles reflects the clear intention of the organization, and member expectations are appropriately managed by requesting that they sign this document. The Collaborative Governance document explains the consensus process that TFA uses to make decisions. If this system has not frustrated the decision-making progression, and the organization has been able to accomplish its goals, then there is no need to alter a mechanism that is working. The work plan is organized by these categories: people, policy, and capital. Aligning the work plan categories with the key issues instead would present a more seamless integration with TFA’s communication documents. Every TFA member should review the work plan often and have in their possession the 2019 final policy recommendations fact sheets. The policy recommendation fact sheets clearly exemplify the organization’s vision and tactics for the six key issues that drive TFA’s work. What appears to be missing is an accountability mechanism to ensure that members are working towards the goals being set in the work plan. TFA could benefit from adding an accountability policy/affirmation to its guiding principles and/or Memorandum of Agreement. Our aim is to always take a human-centered approach to our facilitation design and exhibit a commitment to partnering with local businesses in the priority geography of our clients. In framing our facilitation experience we encouraged participants to travel via public transit, participate in guided wellness breaks, and partake in food catered by local businesses. We held three in-person meetings with an average of 24 participants at each meeting. Those meeting took place on: The purpose of our first meeting was to set the foundational stage for which the strategic plan would be built. TFA members participated in a range of exercises that resulted in a thorough needs assessment of the organization. The second meeting was squarely focused on gathering data to inform the strategic articulation map and gave old and new members an opportunity to revisit the work that they had accomplished thus far and re-imagine a transformational future. The final in-person meeting was conducted focus group style, members were divided into vision areas and brainstormed ideas for the thinking big, starting small, and growing together portions of the strategic articulation map. In order to gather the requisite intel to inform the fund development plan, a landscape analysis of 9 similarly situated alliances, 5 key stakeholder interviews, a literature review, and 3 strategic planning sessions with TFA members were conducted. 1. May 30, 2019, from 9:30am-4:30pm 2. June 26, 2018, from 9:30am-4:30pm 3. September 18, 2019, from 2:30pm-4:30pm

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

3.0

TFA MEMBERS PULSE CHECK

As we began this process, we asked members to share what they were most proud of regarding TFA and what made us most unique. We used these findings to orient our work on the strengths of the organization. We’ve shared excerpts from the perspectives they shared below. If you’d like to see the full video, please go to https://www.tribute.co/transformation-alliance/

Stakeholder Reflections and Comments

“So, that’s one thing I’m really proud of that we are really reflecting the core values that started TransFormation Alliance, and that our new members have really taken to their own hearts and are showing up to embody as well.” “TFA members are really good at collaborating in order to achieve our shared goals, which has served us really well. Each time I have worked on putting together the TransFormation Academy, I’ve been able to reach out to different members and ask for whatever it was we needed, whether it was a space or different resources or trainers” “I would just like to say that I am most proud of the fact that we’ve been able to document all the efforts we have done and will be doing in the very near future. And I would say what makes us extremely unique is that we are a diverse group of organizations and individuals that can change the lives of young people. I look forward to changing the world with you soon. “ “We are very proud of the fact that we’ve been able to build trust within the community and our target areas and neighborhoods. I feel as though we have engaged our community stakeholders and community members and built this sense of trust that they now feel as though they can come to us, the TransFormation Alliance, for different resources, information, and just staying up to date.”

“What makes us so unique, or most unique, or super unique. The fact that we are able to come together as various organizations and work together collaboratively. Our membership is growing and as someone who’s been active on the executive level, I would say that that’s a beautiful thing and not something that we’ve seen. “ “I’m proud that we have one, worked together and stuck together, but then two, that we’re actually making a difference in the communities that we care about. The communities in West End and Oakland City and in the Atlanta University Center are definitely benefiting from the work we’ve done together. “ “As we look at this next level of the TransFormation Alliance, I’m excited about how effective that we’re going to be in this next round. How we have been able to leverage our collective resources together, how we’ve been able to work together and really grow this movement in a different way. So, thank you, TransFormation Alliance. I look forward to the next five years. “ “ What I believe we’re most proud of is the fact that we’ve been able to sustain such a large cohort of really amazing leaders in the community on the southwest side. “

“ I think one of the things that also makes us most unique, perhaps, in some of the other regional alliances is that we’re very diverse in my opinion. We’ve got that age diversity, race diversity, organizational diversity, and we’re all working together in a very cohesive and sober manner. “ “I continue to be most proud of TFAs approach to community change, how inclusive it is of the issues that are really reflective of individual’s lives, and how it fully embraces that past, present, and future of both what we’ve done here in Atlanta and what still holds as potential for us “ “I am proud, perhaps the most proud of the fact that we have embraced community engagement as a critical component of our approach to the work and I think we’re not just talking the talk, but we’re walking the walk and finding different ways to do that. Which has brought, I think, a tremendous amount of value to the work that we do “ “there’s such a broad coalition of organizations across all sectors of Atlanta coming together to ensure that we have a more equitable community. “

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

4.0 STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP

STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP atltransformationalliance.org

OUR PURPOSE

The TransFormation Alliance directs the collective power of our members to advance equitable transit-oriented development as a pathway to economic prosperity, opportunity, and a high quality of life for our beloved Metro Atlanta neighborhoods, especially legacy communities of color.

OUR VISION Think Big, Start Small, Grow Together

FROM ISSUES TO VISIONS: Thriving and inclusive communities around transit to empower economic prosperity.

Racial Equity

Jobs for economic advancement

Healthy Living

Climate resilient quality of life

Healthy safe aordable housing

Thriving artists, arts and creative entrepreneurs

Mobility in our Neighborhoods

OUR DIFFERENTIATORS What Makes Our New Atlanta Way Dierent

Enhance collaboration amongst members and stakeholders

Elevate New Atlanta Way equitable strategies

Set a new Atlanta way: transform Atlanta

Agitate and create a sense of urgency; disrupt

Unleash the power of a multi-sector approach to problem solving

OUR CORE VALUES

Inclusion

Impact

Influence

Prepared by

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

We conducted a needs assessment by using the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) analysis approach. This appreciative inquiry technique helped us focus on TFA’s current strengths and opportunities, and served as the baseline to transition TFA’s issue to “Vision Snapshots”.

Strengths: TFA does a lot well, they possess key assets, resources, capabilities, and have accomplished much. The members have a strong passion for the success of the city of Atlanta and the region as a whole. This success can only be achieved by alleviating racism. They seek to alleviate racism by using the diversity of the organizations represented in TFA, leveraging collective resources, and building community trust. By working collaboratively, prioritizing art, and emphasizing leadership development, they can proactively address the positive tension that exists when talking about race and how to reverse institutional racism.

Opportunities: Opportunities are a set of circumstances that TFA can leverage for success. They have the opportunity to strengthen community leadership, internal communication, and deploy financial resources quicker.

Aspirations: The ultimate goal is for the “New” Atlanta Way to achieve racial equity in arts & culture, jobs, housing choice, mobility, health, and climate.

Results: Results are tangible outcomes and measures that demonstrate that you have achieved your goals and aspirations. These outcomes are listed here because they can be tracked via outcomes, outputs, touches, quantitatively and qualitatively. They will be included in TFA’s KPIs should they choose to use that method to monitor success. • Reduce community member displacement • Achieve systematic change • Reduce stress for better health outcomes, improve social determinants of health • Use data to inform policy changes • Equity evaluator tool is being utilized to make equitable decisions by policymakers • TFA has resident community members who are members of their executive committee • TFA funding is doubled and a portion has been segmented for leadership development • Lead with culture in all TFA work • Influence developers to apply a racial equity analysis to their decision-making metrics

The outputs from the needs assessment greatly informed the design of the strategic planning process and each strength, opportunity, aspiration, and result are present in some aspect of the strategic articulation map and strategic priorities.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

VISION SNAPSHOTS

THINK BIG 2022

Racial Equity Vision A person’s racial identity no longer predicts their success and opportunity in life Vision Snapshot: Young neighbor giving a presentation on how former predictions of negative outcomes for youth are no longer valid.

Headline Indicator: Usage of Equity Calculator

Health Vision Healthy living is the most accessible, aordable, and appealing option for everyone. Vision Snapshot: Residents are happy and healthy with increased health literacy & awareness

Climate Vision Every resident has fair and equitable access to a healthy and sustainable quality of life that is resilient to our changing climate. Vision Snapshot: TFA areas of Atlanta have 100% clean energy with community leadership. Headline Indicator: Atlanta Residents trained in CREW (Culture-Resilience-Environment-Workforce) Arts and Place Vision Artists, arts administrators and creative entrepreneurs are recognized in playing a pivotal role in community development and inclusive place making Vision Snapshot: Beautiful community centered arts festival that showcases our wide range of culture, performance and visual arts drawing people from all over the country. Mobility Vision Communities are served by safe and reliable mobility options that link all residents, including persons with a disability, to the opportunities that benefit their social and economic prosperity, health and culture Vision Snapshot Reduced time spent in trac in areas served with mode share for sustainable transportation higher than driving/car ridership Headline Indicator: Attendance at arts and culture events

Headline Indicator: Health Equity Metrics used by all partners

Housing Vision Everyone has access to healthy, safe and aordable housing options that link them to transit, education, jobs and health services. Vision Snapshot: Families smiling in front of their homes, with easy access to MARTA and other transit options, proud of their communities Headline Indicator: Number of community member displacements Jobs Vision Residents in low-income communities have access to sustainable jobs, training, and education programs, as well as inclusive opportunities for economic advancement. Vision Snapshot: All TFA community area jobs have livable wages with a percentage (to be determined) of community wages on par with higher standards of living. Headline Indicator: Percentage of Jobs in Communities with a Livable Wage

Headline Indicator: Transit Ridership

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

START SMALL 2020

Racial Equity • Community advisors are engaged more closely in TFA • Racial Equity infused in policies through TFA advocacy • Activated Policy Champion to push TFA’s policy. race and equity expertise and objectives

Health • Members advocate message of “Health, not just health care” • TFA convening about how each organization measures health, works with health, etc. • Central health resources that members can use Housing • Aordable housing education • TFA provides more resources to support Historic Trust’s Preservation Initiative • Near completed Tucker Avenue as a success example of the community land trust (CLT) Model Jobs Vision • Showcasing key organizations that support a living wage • Connecting and engaging job training and workforce development programs that have the capacity to serve/train our community • Developing job training and employment tracking across all TFA organizations to ensure well trained participants

Climate • Community residents employed/started their own business in Green Infrastructure. • Urban Green Jobs Training • Increased community awareness and education of stormwater management Arts and Place Vision • TFA and partners cross promote arts and cultures events and strongly encourage community and memberships to support and attend • Host ‘TFA huddles’ during arts and culture events Mobility • Mobility and transit decision making are more inclusive of community • Fund allocation and spending focused on equity in transit • Making existing stations more desirable (clean, safe) and accessible

GROW TOGETHER 2021

Racial Equity • Members are race and equity thought leaders • Residents are engaged in civic conversations • Institutional partners have joint fund to invest in smaller community entrepreneurs

Health • Organizations outside of TFA understand our integrated health vision • Ongoing inter-member support and advice on health • Meaningful community engagement into health equity metrics Housing • TFA advocates and lobbies for city moving forward on housing aordability act • Current City Inclusionary Zoning Policy is enforced city wide • Preserving aordability via Assistance FUND (i.e., Eviction Prevention Fund) • Warranty of Habitability Jobs Vision • Develop a centralized digital resource that allows people to view all of their job training options in the TFA ecosystem • Utilize Living wage calculator in each community (tool) • Illuminate Entrepreneurship Pathways (Highlight membership, supportive, connective, etc.)

Climate • Advertise the Atlanta CREW program through all member organizations (build awareness) • Create climate profile of Atlanta, GA • Communities access innovative and aordable climate change solutions Arts and Place • Develop and pilot training to equip artists and those working on cross-sector issues to learn from one another

Mobility

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES What’s most important to us

STRENGTHEN A Healthy TransFormation Alliance

ACTIVATE Our Influence

LEVERAGE Existing Programs

DEEPEN Our Solidarity with Community Partners

CRITICAL INITIATIVES What we need to do

Build Advocacy Position • Retain policy capacity to develop and implement a multi-year campaign for ETOD in metro Atlanta, including arts & culture • Design and pilot a state legislator training/ certification program • Advance transparent and eective use of Equity Evaluation Tool in support of a new process for distributing financing and conducting community engagement • Strengthen and brighten TFA's value add as a multi-issue collaborative to influence The ATL, City governments, MARTA, institutional partners • Activate TFA Academy graduates, including use of a & c strategies • Develop data strategies for evaluation & case making Build a bold, audacious, disruptive initiative • Support and empower Morris Brown resurgence • Target, advocate and engage a project to demonstrate the impact of TFA and get a small win to start momentum. community stakeholders • Understand our area’s transit needs and desires • Engage community advisors, parents and families • Host community dinners and conversations to ensure all voices are heard • Residents must be brought to the table and empowered Intentionally and proactively engage all

Leadership Development • Design and execute a tailored "leadership development" program to support member growth as leaders and as people dedicated to social justice • Use 2020 Workplanning Session to discuss/change/reconfirm Issue • Champion structure, governance, member connectivity via arts & culture • Grow operational capacity by adding 1.5 FTE sta (including development/grant writing capacity) • Know and tap into the talent in the collaborative • Build for influence (government, power) • Develop Policy Champion to push TFA’s policy agenda • Build capacity for the organization Brand Development for TFA • Develop a comprehensive communications strategy that supports brand development as well as elevating member work • Develop Brand Guide • Develop Elevator Pitch Guide for Members Fund Development and Plan • Cultivate funder champion(s) • Develop TFA scorecard with Headline Indicators (Use data to make the case and inspire transformative action) • Grow our grant writing capacity Construct Vision • Implement Vision Snapshots, Start Small, Vision Projects

• Note Question for Odetta - These are in vision construction • Support evolution/continuation of Atlanta CREW completion of Tucker Avenue as demonstration of permanent aordability via land trust • Support Station Soccer model w/emphasis on West End & East Point • Continue TFA Academies, including Youth Summer Camp • Support successful

• Execute plan for adding three resident members to the Executive Committee • Execute support for Black farmers identified in Urban Farm Tour

• Double our Mini Grants program to $100,000

• Elevate the role of children and youth in ETOD and community development planning and programming • Advocate for resources in our partnering neighborhoods

• Racial Equity • Health Vision • Climate Vision • Housing Vision • Arts and Place Vision • Jobs Vision • Mobility Vision

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

TFA Implementation Plan

2020 (START SMALL)

2021 (GROWTOGETHER)

2022 (THINK BIG)

Vision Construction 7 vision elements to construct, 6 weeks per element

Prioritize Fund Development Plan Actions

STRENGTHEN A Healthy TransFormation Alliance

Activate Fund Development Priorities

Deploy Leadership Development Initiative

Assess and Develop Brand

Engage All Community Stakeholders

ACTIVATE Our Influence

Build Advocacy

Be Bold and Disrupt

Atlanta CREW

Tucker Avenue

LEVERAGE Existing Programs

Station Soccer

TFA Academies

Engage Resident Members

DEEPEN Our Solidarity with Community Partners

Grow Mini Grants

Elevate Children and Youth in ETOD

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

Balanced Scorecard It is recommended that TFA begin to measure its impact with a balanced scorecard. Below see a illustrative conceptual model that can be viewed as the beginning of a design of the scorecard. This will largely be an internally managed tool among leadership and members. This will allow the organization to know at a glance where to focus its attention for its near term efforts and energy. The metrics included should be viewed as ideal and will need to be evaluated for data collection feasibility, usefulness and impact. This should be revisited and finalized in a focused scorecard implementation critical initiative.

Balanced Scorecard Design Draft Financial Objectives

PROGRAM IMPACT Objectives

TARGET

CURRENT

TO TARGET

TARGET

CURRENT

TO TARGET

Racial Equity

Increase in Revenue

Usage of Equity Calculator

Number of Funders

Atlanta Residents trained in CREW Climate resilient quality of life Healthy safe affordable housing Healthy Living Health Equity Metrics used by all partners Number of community member displacements Attendance at arts and culture events Thriving artists, arts and creative entrepreneurs

Diversity in Funder Type

Members Objectives

TARGET

CURRENT

TO TARGET

Number of Members

Net Promoter Score

Internal Brand Objectives

Jobs for economic advancement

TARGET

CURRENT

TO TARGET

Percentage of Jobs in Communities with a Livable Wage

Number of Followers

Mobility in our Neighborhoods

Number of Communications

Number of Events

Transit Ridership

Impact Performance

On or above target

Below target / Trending on target

Below target

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN 5.0

Introduction In the last decade, there has been an increase in philanthropic support of race equity focused organizations and community economic development. The TransFormation Alliance is well positioned to successfully compete for this growing pool of funds utilizing a comprehensive approach to fund development. The methodology used to develop the proposed fund development strategy included: a landscape analysis of similar alliances, key stakeholder interviews, a literature review and strategic planning sessions with TransFormation Alliance members. From our research emerged five central themes to be integrated into TransFormation Alliance’s fund development strategy: 1. “Grooming a Champion” refers to the TransFormation Alliance’s capacity to find someone in Metro Atlanta with enough wealth, power and prestige who could leverage their voice and social capital to be a patron of TFA’s mission and galvanize wide-spread support. 2. “Sense-making” entails helping stakeholders understand the concept of equitable transit-oriented development (eTOD) and the intersection between place based and people based interventions to help make the case for advocating and supporting TransFormation Alliance’s efforts. 3. “Relationship Mapping” refers to TransFormation Alliance mastering their capacity to cultivate and nurture relationships that result in strong strategic partnerships with funders, advocates and influential stakeholders. 4. “A Bridge to Equity” examines the ways in which the alliance serves as a bridge between small grassroots and grass tops organizations to the larger philanthropic community. 5. “Strong Policy and Advocacy Agenda” evaluates the importance of a research informed policy and advocacy agenda to better position TransFormation Alliance as a thought leader and influencer of policy and practice in the field of ETOD. These five themes categorize the proposed strategic approach to fund development.

TransFormation Alliance

verb /tran(t)s’fôrm/

Transform

To make a thorough or dramatic change in appearance.

Transform refers to making a thorough or dramatic change in appearance. TransFormation Alliance has a unique opportunity to, leveraging the collective power of its member organizations, transform Atlanta into a city that fully supports and believes equitable transit-oriented development to be a pathway to economic prosperity, opportunity, and a high quality of life for ALL of Atlanta’s residents. The TransFormation Alliance should leverage Atlanta’s unique history illustrated below, make the case for why Atlanta is primed to achieve eTOD and unapologetically brand itself as a champion of racial equity.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

The Birth of Two Black Atlantas

White Flight

The Land of Black Public Housing

Urban Displacement

In the 1960’s, the construction of Interstate Highway 20 , coupled with the outlawing of discriminatory housing convenants, spurred white flight to the suburbs (Kruse 2013). Suburbanization resulted in severe public and private disinvestment in Black Southwest Atlanta neighborhoods as commercial infrastructure, businesses, franchises and jobs also migrated to the suburbs.

Atlanta was founded at the end of Georgia’s state-sponsored Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1835. Although a thriving Black middle class community emerged in the 1860s, Black neighborhoods were still in substandard conditions when compared to their white counterparts positioned closer to the rail hubs

In 1980, the completion of Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) allowed suburbanites to easily commute to the city for corporate jobs and encouraged the Black elite to leave the deteriorating city. Atlanta lost 21% of its population between 1970 and 1990

In 2019, historic Black neighborhoods along the recently completed Eastside Beltline Trail have seen an influx of middle-upper class populations, luxury infrastructure, and non-Black culture that have displaced original low-income residents and reduced the amount of affordable housing and Black cultural centers (HJL 2017).

(U.S. Census Bureau 2012). By the 1990s,

Atlanta had the highest proportion of residents in public housing in the U.S.

Only three out of the nine alliances researched in the landscape analysis mention racial equity as part of their organizational mission: TransForm based in the Bay Area, Elevated Chicago, and Puget Sound Sage located in Seattle. Transform is funded by more than seven prominent foundations (i.e. Ford, The California Endowment,Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund, Kaiser Permanente,William and Flora Hewlett Foundation). Though founded in 2017, Elevated Chicago has secured funding from major national foundations including SPARCC, Enterprise Convergence Partnership, MacArthur Foundation, and JP Morgan Chase & Co. While each of these alliances referenced racial equity, this focus area is not placed at the center of their agendas. Furthermore, these cities do not have a concentrated population of Black neighborhoods as large as Atlanta. Despite its potential to champion racial equity, the TransFormation Alliance’s measures of impact and branding awareness are weaker than the aforementioned three alliances. In terms of funding trends, the three aforementioned alliances are still prime examples of partnerships that address racial equity and receive substantial funding from either major local, regional and national foundations. TransForm receives substantial funding partially because they operationalize their goals into common measures that can be reported to key investors and stakeholders. Some of these measures include the reduction in transportation pollution, a decrease in the combined cost of housing and transportation, higher rates of safety in walking and biking, and greater access to jobs via public transit. Recommendation: TransFormation Alliance should develop a set of metrics that are easy to understand, communicate and track. The metrics should demonstrate to key stakeholders and funders the impact of TransFormation Alliance’s work.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

Both Transform and Elevated Chicago had the highest brand awareness because their branding strategy went beyond the fundamental website, social media pages, newsletters, and a creative logo. The chart below illustrates the extensive branding strategies for each partnership.

Transform

Elevated Chicago

• 80 page work plan for next steps forward until 2020 • Community Engagement Principles and Recommendations report • Summary of their 2019 eTOD “All Aboard” symposium that was attended by 200 people • Blog of Elevated Chicago and eTOD news • Blog of media coverage • Elevated Chicago Stories from people being empowered by their work • Videos about Elevated Chicago mission and from their events

• 2020 Priorities Report • A list of reports that they have produced or collaborated with since 1998 • A blog called TransForum that covers the alliance, victories, challenges, and new bills • News coverage of TransForm efforts • E-news videos • Recommendations on state, regional, and local policy • A list of press releases • The reports of TransForm Transportation Equity Summits from 2012 to 2019

Recommendation: The TransFormation Alliance should develop a branding and communications plan to market their community impact to ETOD funders. TFA should center racial equity at the core of their new branding strategy and replicate some of the communication tools utilized by alliances like Elevated Chicago and Transform to increase awareness of the importance of the work and galvanize support from funders, stakeholders, and individual donors.

Capacity Considerations: Engage a communications consultant to support the development and implementation of a branding and communications campaign.

TransFormation Alliance

noun /fòrm/

Form

To influence or shape by training or discipline.

An integral part of what TransFormation Alliance does is shape policy and practice impacting the eTOD space by informing and influencing stakeholders. Part of the strategic approach to fund development and stakeholder engagement focuses on 1) Grooming a Champion, 2) Sense Making and 3) Building a strong policy and advocacy agenda.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

“Grooming a Champion”

1. “Grooming a Champion” refers to the TransFormation Alliance’s capacity to find someone in Metro Atlanta with enough wealth, power and prestige who could leverage their voice and social capital to be a patron of TFA’s mission and galvanize wide-spread support. We received critical feedback from our interview respondents on how the TransFormation Alliance can amplify their voice through building strategic relationships with high net worth individuals. An example of this strategic approach in action would be the major collaborative efforts and significant investments poured into early childcare and education. Early childcare and education have received tons of philanthropic support and resources partially because the cause had a champion in Stephanie Blank. Stephanie Blank was groomed to be an educated and well-versed champion of the issues impacting early childcare and education and became a powerful voice and, in some ways, a conduit between organizations on the frontline doing important work and hard to reach wealthy donors and philanthropic networks with the capacity to invest. Recommendation: Compile a list of potential champions to amplify the voice and increase the awareness of TFA’s work and its impact on the city of Atlanta. Once TFA identifies a champion, spend a considerable amount of time educating the champion on the issues and equip them to be a strong advocate on TFA’s behalf. 2. “Sense-making” entails helping stakeholders understand the strong connection between place based and people based interventions to encourage new interests in funding the TransFormation Alliance. As eTOD initiatives increase, there is a rising funding pattern in which funders are more inclined to support partnerships that target affordable housing, access to quality jobs, eTOD, climate change, and health disparities. In the landscape analysis, each of the nine alliances concentrated on at least four out of five of these focus areas. What differentiates the stronger alliances from weaker alliances, which had less funding, are the type of strategies used to target the five common focus areas. There is a strong correlation between an organization’s capacity to actively sense-make with potential funders and key stakeholders and its fundraising success. We can compare and learn from the stronger alliances who showed high efficiency in connecting people and place based issues. In terms of tactics for sense-making, stronger alliances developed comprehensive branding processes that unified focus areas into one narrative and leveraged reports to demonstrate interrelatedness of focus areas. Other methods included launching a series of initiatives that address each of their focus areas together in a holistic approach, and explaining to key stakeholders how their policy advocacy for each focus area is interconnected. Recommendation: TransFormation Alliance should develop a set of funding pitches that showcase its critical initiatives and interconnectedness of the issue areas impacted. For example, new soccer fields in the West End are helping promote health through exercise, enhance climate resilience through transit, promote social cohesion, and create local jobs. Making sense of how focus areas are interconnected helps funders move beyond viewing issue areas as silos. The holistic vision encourages funders to support agendas that are addressing the multiple dimensions of racial equity that impact one another. “Sense Making”

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

“Strong Policy and Advocacy Agenda”

3. “Strong Policy and Advocacy Agenda” evaluates how TFA can continue to advance its public policy and advocacy agenda to appeal to national foundations. Our research has shown that larger national foundations are most interested in alliances that are transforming public policies or engaging in advocacy strategies. Seven out of the nine alliances in the landscape analysis had a public policy focus. The alliances without a public/advocacy agenda had the lowest number of funding sources. In contrast, the four strong alliances had high levels of policy and advocacy work and more funding sources. The three strongest policy and advocacy approaches were as follows:

TransForm

Elevate Chicago

Puget Sound Sage

Organizational Function:

Disrupting inequity through work with agencies and decision- makers to craft policy and regulations that focus on equity and climate, without stifling innovation.

Shape the Debate: Elected officials, opinion-leaders and the media view Puget Sound Sage as a go-to resource for economic and environmental policy expertise, innovative ideas and racial equity expertise when it comes to shaping sound policies and winning local campaigns. Grow the Movement: We advocate for policy that makes racial and social equity a top goal for decision makers at all levels

Implementing the community working group “Systems Change” , which is focused on policy and other interventions in decision-making processes

The TransFormation Alliance can advance their funding strategies through considering or strengthening three fundamental approaches to addressing public policy. First, learn from TransForm’s approach to branding awareness to reflect on their process of building a reputation around the policies they support or have won. Second, Elevate Chicago requires the TransFormation Alliance to rethink their bridge work to not just fund smaller organizations, but provide these smaller organizations and community members a powerful platform to devise policies and demand racial equity. Third, Puget Sound Sage urges the TransFormation Alliance to embrace their unapologetic framework and use that as an asset to conduct research and thus, shape debate around policies seeking to disregard racial equity. It should be noted that TransForm and Elevate Chicago were the only two alliances receiving funding from both local and national funders. Recommendation: Prioritize the development of a multi-issue policy platform, including the following activities: • Developing a state legislator curriculum to help policymakers learn about and productively discuss the difficult, adaptive challenges of our transportation system • Shaping and Informing the City’s TOD Ordinance = TOD Living Transit Fund (Invest Atlanta) • Equipping Finance Institutions with the Equity Evaluation Scorecard (Southface)

Capacity Consideration: Hire a policy consultant to conduct a landscape analysis of city, state and federal policies that would hinder or advance TransFormation Alliance’s work.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

TransFormation Alliance

noun for·ma·tion | /fòr-’mā-shən/

Formation

An arrangement of a body or group of persons or things in some prescribed manner or for a particular purpose

Formation refers to the arrangement of different forms with a designated purpose. For the TransFormation Alliance, its cultivating of relationships and working closely with neighborhood members, nonprofits, community activists, developers, and funders represents a collective effort towards advancing equitable transit-oriented development as a pathway to economic prosperity, opportunity, and a high quality of life for all of Atlanta’s residents.

“Relationship Mapping”

4. “Relationship Mapping” refers to TransFormation Alliance mastering their capacity to cultivate and nurture relationships that result in strong strategic partnerships with funders, advocates and influential stakeholders. The TransFormation Alliance’s membership model and collaborative way it works creates a powerful opportunity to tap into the value of its network to reach its stakeholder engagement and fund development goals. This requires embedding relationship mapping into TFA’s fund development approach. Relationship mapping is a process of laying out the connections between people. A relationship mapping process, performed against your most highly engaged members and stakeholders, can be a great way to find and prioritize prospects with whom your members and allies already have a connection.The focus should be on empowering your members to become more actively involved in influencing the organization’s success. This could be as simple as identifying individuals within their network who may be interested in sponsoring a TFA hosted event or serving on a panel or providing in-kind professional services like graphic design, research or writing, or even being present during prospect and donor meetings. No single member organization can have large-scale impact on its own. It requires numerous relationships and connections working together to deliver the kind of scalable impact desired for lasting change. A solid relationship mapping program can provide TFA with the tools to discover new relationships, advance existing ones, and maximize every opportunity. Recommendation: Utilize a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to not only manage current donor relationships, but to build a repository of information on influential stakeholders: who they are, who they know, what you have in common with them and how you can leverage the relationship to advance TransFormation Alliance’s mission. With 30+ members, TransFormation Alliance can amass a powerful database and relationship map that can be useful for TransFormation Alliance and its members.

TRANSFORMATION ALLIANCE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION MAP & FUND DEVELOPMENT PLAN REPORT

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