Episode 47: Tipping Point Community

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guests: Kelly Bathgate, Chief Program Officer and Marisa Giller, Communications Director at Tipping Point Community

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host. 

Series Introduction: This episode is part of our series exploring COVID-19’s impact on nonprofits and small businesses in San Francisco. Back in April 2020 when we decided to create this ongoing series on Covid-19’s impact first on nonprofits and then on small businesses in the San Francisco Bay. We like you had no idea how long the pandemic would go on and what the health and economic impact would be on our community. Going into 2021 the pandemic is now killing more people, shutting down more nonprofits and small businesses, along with wiping out the lively hoods of families, neighborhoods and communities.

We will continue to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits, and small businesses that make up the fabric of our community along with the founders and staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability until we can all get to the other side of the pandemic. Along the way, we will also share with you all the amazing solutions that our nonprofits, small businesses, foundations, and government leaders are working on to help us all get to the other side of the pandemic and come together to rebuild our communities with more economic, social and environmental equality

Show Guest Kelly: I think that when we start thinking about, poverty in the Bay Area, which again, I just want to reiterate here in this region, I have to believe that it is solvable. And I know that's crazy to say, because of how complex the problems are, but we have all the resources in this region, and I think when applied appropriately, and strategically, and with flexibility, we can really change opportunities for people. And I think that we've seen various examples of that through our kind of multi-pronged approach. 

Episode Intro - Show Host George: This is the Chief Program Officer Kelly Bathgate and Communications Director Marisa Giller of Tipping Point Community. Tipping Point Community was founded by Daniel Lurie back in 2005 with a systemic approach to ending the cycle of poverty for over one plus millions of our fellow community members in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tipping Point’s model is different from a traditional philanthropic organization or a foundation. Tipping Point sits right in the middle between incredible wealth and incredible poverty. Their board of directors covers their overhead, they utilize all of their funding to have 100 percent impact, they have no endowment and every year they start at zero and raise millions of dollars to fund nonprofits in their four key issues that Kelly and Marisa will walk us through today.

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via zoom by Kelly Bathgate the chief program officer and Marisa Giller, the communications director at Tipping Point Community. Thanks for being here, Kelly Marisa

Show Guest Kelly: Thanks for having me George

Show Host George: It would be really wonderful for the audience to have an overview. And then we can go into a little bit more depth of the, amazing portfolio of programs that tipping point has. So, could you please share with the audience, what is Tipping Point and what are your portfolio of programs?

Show Guest Kelly:  Sure.  As you said, there's a lot that we do. So, I'll start with the top Tipping Point is, a Bay Area, San Francisco based foundation. And our mission is to advance, poverty fighting solutions here in the Bay area. We do that, by investing in nonprofit organizations through general operating grants and then providing additional capacity building support to help them grow stronger and have greater impact with the communities that they are serving. We focused on four key issue areas that we kind of see as the key leavers for alleviating poverty, education housing early childhood and employment. And within each of those, we have kind of key targets and goals that we have. In addition, we have a few particular initiatives that are focused on specific populations.

So many people have heard of our chronic homelessness initiative here in San Francisco, which is aiming to reduce the number of chronically homeless people here in San Francisco by half by 2023. And we also have initiative focused specifically on foster youth and providing the right supports for transitional age youth who will be transitioning out of the system and ensuring that, the system is providing them with what they need to be successful in adulthood.

George: And then you have an entire research component as well, and then, you're lobbying. I think another really interesting piece of what you do is the corporate philanthropy piece. So, can you talk a little bit about the research piece, but then also you're going out into corporate philanthropists and say, please put your money where you say your values are.

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah. So I think one thing that's really unique and great about Tipping Point is that we sit in a position in between a lot of the work that our organizations are doing and an incredibly generous and influential donor population too. So recently within the last few years, we've expanded from just investing in direct service organizations to lifting up and thinking, okay, what is it going to take to actually move the needle on poverty and realizing that well, the direct services, that are grantees are providing are critical and we have to continue to invest in that to be kind of the strong nonprofit ecosystem that's serving people directly.

We need to think about how we can expand that to have a, greater impact through policy solutions to extend that impact as well as researching solutions that we may not know of yet. So, within each of our areas, we have kind of a dynamic set of research questions that we are continually asking to see what solutions do we not even know about?

 How can we particularly focus on a population that may be disproportionately impacted by a challenge, that kind of thing. And so that helps us, invest in what we think will be most effective. And then on the policy side, within each of our portfolio areas that I named, we have an anchor policy organization, that aligns with what we're trying to make happen, so that our organizations who are on the ground, serving people have the most success doing that. And the, success that they are able to have, can be extended through leveraging additional public resources and potential legislation or regulations to help extend that impact.

George: So, within education, you would have a policy with regards to funding, education and, or a partner organization that's helping you facilitate that?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah.  That's a great example. So, within education, our anchor policy organization is Education Trust-West based in Oakland. And within that speaking of kind of education financing, what we are really focused on is equitable and consistent financing. And so, one thing that we know is a great challenge for schools, particularly those that are serving low-income children that the streams of funding that come from public sources are greatly supplemented often in some of the wealthiest suburbs. And so how do we ensure that the schools who need the most support are getting adequate resources? The other thing is that because of state budgeting, that resources that are coming in sometimes, can vary from year to year. And so, it can be as you can imagine, incredibly challenging to provide a high-quality education without that level of consistency and in budget planning.

 George: And then you would go out to corporations and say, we have, this education program. And by the way, could you each put in $10 million? which I find really, it's crowdsourcing in a whole other level. Can you share a little bit about that?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, I forgot to touch on the corporate, partnership piece. So yeah, I think that our fundraising, we are able to connect with a variety of obviously individual donors, but also corporations. And I think that, where there can be the greatest opportunity for impact, is particularly in a region like the Bay Area, where there's so many incredible companies, and leaders within the world really garnering those resources to focus on the problems at hand.

And so, yes, we might go to a corporation and say, there's this particular issue we want you to invest in. Or more broadly speaking. I'm a big believer that all of our, quote unquote issue areas are intersections. And so, it really is if we're going to take care of our community, of the Bay Area, and we know you have so much wealth here   and I was in not just financial wealth, but wealth of knowledge, wealth of innovation. And of course, wealth, financially as well. How do we pull all those resources and really make poverty something that is, solvable here in the Bay Area.

George: I want to segue back for a second into kind of research because it dovetails into my next question as well, with regards to how COVID-19 has impacted your portfolio of nonprofit organizations, but in your most recent  research has your research , kind of teased out some of the impact on non-profits, for example, my end of the year show, I interviewed the folks at CANDID and they estimate that, 12 to, as high as 38% of nonprofits could conceivably go in the United States. So, in the Bay area, specifically in your mission of trying to alleviate poverty, what does some of your indicators or dashboard research show? How has COVID-19 impacting folks?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah. I mean, I think that what we've really seen, and this isn't that surprising, but COVID-19 is impacting our core population low-income people. So much further than others. And so, what we're really seeing that from looking at those who have lost employment.

So hourly wage workers, workers who don't have flexibility to work at home workers who may not be eligible for the other financial resources because of their immigration status. And there are disproportionate impacts of that at the same time we're seeing our nonprofit organizations really be inundated with more service numbers when they are having much greater challenges themselves raising funds and planning.

Like we were talking about the importance of planning and financial and budgeting really not having that certainty for, how they pivot and serve more individuals and in new and different ways

George: One of the unique, things about Tipping Point is that you're actually doing something that now, big philanthropy has come to understand over this last 10 months of COVID and that is funding general operations. So, can you share a little bit about, what you guys look for in the metrics and measurements, if you will, of your current research, but how you're funding, general overhead, which is unusual in, the, philanthropy world as you are now.

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, I believe it's somewhere in the neighborhood and unfortunately, it hasn't changed that much since I first started at Tipping Point nearly 10 years ago, but I believe that range is somewhere between 25 and 30% of all philanthropic dollars come out in general operating.

We are just an incredible advocate of general operating support for non-profit organizations. And I think a lot of that is driven from an approach that really, obviously we do a ton of due diligence and ensure that we are, vetting the organizations that we invest in. But we also want to make sure that we are setting them up for success as much as possible.

And if you think about, how businesses are run or how any other kind of sector works. To not have flexibility and the funding that you have to as a leader to make the decisions, to be able to pivot in moments such as COVID is a perfect example. We just really think it can, result in sort of hamstrung organizations enhanced on leaders. And so, I think it's a critical component of what we're doing. And I would say a great example of something that we've sort of been validated through the current crisis that we're going through.

George: So, what do you feel has been, the largest impact on the community, of Tipping Point's, efforts and your ability to multiply, multiply your impact through corporate philanthropy, but multiply it through the intersectionality of your approach?

Kelly Bathgate: I mean, there's, there's so much, to say to that. I definitely think that there I’ll speak both kind of long-term but also specifically now in COVID I think one thing that we saw right off the bat was our ability to get resources out to the, our grantee organizations were on the ground, serving people within.

I think we launched our emergency effort three days before the shelter in place ordered here in the Bay area. We raised a bunch of money and then we're able to get $5 million out within the first three months. And all of those dollars were direct support for individuals facing hardship.

So rental support, food, access, technology and ensuring, that our organizations are able to continue to provide really going back to kind of basic needs for individuals. I think that, that was huge. I would also say kind of to your point about that kind of collective impact, we immediately stood up a weekly meeting. It was honestly intended, I think the Friday before our shelter in place, just as everyone was kind of scared and not knowing what this meant and what should we be thinking about? And one of, I think Tipping Point's, biggest strengths is our, grantee leadership and they are a community.

So, we have the opportunity to convene so that they can just really learn from and support each other. So, we had a kind of last-minute zoom call that we planned, and it was funny. I'll be honest at the time I was like, Oh, no camera. Like, why would we ever do a camera on zoom? And all these faces started popping up and we have probably a little over 60 leaders in our portfolio, and everyone started popping up and putting their cameras on and then immediately asked, can we do this every week? Just to have that community.

And so, I think when you really bring in that kind of collective thought partnership everyone from folks that are leading schools and education efforts to leading some of our biggest housing organizations to employment programs, and it was just really able to look at the problem collectively. And then I would say honestly, that’s a version of the same, I would say long term. I think that when we start thinking about, poverty in the Bay Area, which again, I just want to reiterate here in this region, I have to believe that it is solvable.

And I know that's crazy to say, because of how complex the problems are, but we have all the resources in this region, and I think when applied appropriately, and strategically, and with flexibility, we can really change opportunities for people. And I think that we've seen various examples of that through our kind of multi-pronged approach.

George: For people listening to this, what are some of the numbers? Like what’s the percentage of children in poverty, families that live in poverty in the Bay area? Because I think that's a good picture to paint for people.

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, let's see so we have within, and this is funny, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but we have specific targets that we are aiming for. We're looking at it as, both kind of a long-term 10-year projection, as well as three-year goals within each of our issue areas.

So, I can say for an example, we know that, within education we really are focusing on getting low-income and first-generation students to college. And so, that is a primary goal of ours. We have set goals within the next three years of what we need to do to do that. And then looking at that kind of contextually, let’s say within kind of our focus areas to see what, this is a terrible term, but like, what is the market share of that and what would we really need to see to move the needle? Again, I don't have the numbers exactly in front of me. So, I can't say as specifically to that question,

George: Marissa, do you have numbers in front of you on add to it?

Marisa Giller: You know, one of the things that I was thinking about is our study that we did with UC Berkeley called Taking Count that we did right before COVID hit. So released the results back in, well, actually it was May, but we had the results right in March of last year.

Kelly Bathgate: I will say that study is an example of the research that we do So that we have the context, of the kind of size of the problem that we're trying to solve. Things like, how many months of savings people have? What percentage of people have four months of savings? How many people can actually pay their bills every month? And those are the exact indicators that have been so exacerbated by I mean, it's like savings at the time of emergency, and then, here we have one of the biggest emergencies any of us have ever experienced.

George: Over the years that you've worked at Tipping Point, do you have a favorite story of Tipping Point's work in the community?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, so I really think that moment when we hosted our, first zoom calls the Friday before Shelter in Place, and we had no idea what was coming before us. I will be honest when Sam Cobbs, our CEO told me that he wanted me to plan what an emergency response would look like to COVID, I kind of roll my eyes and he was like, are you serious? Like, are you really relieving this too? So, I was certainly, proven wrong in that instance. But we were prepared to do that, and we knew that kind of went all else fails to go back to our community and that strength of our grantees and their leadership. And I'm a very visual person, so the visual pop-up of all these faces just clearly gaining comfort in each other and feeling that like, okay, we can do this regardless of what comes.  That is what I love about, this work, and that is where I find inspiration.  I have so many like different stories and it always goes back to ours. Grantees and, both the leaders that we get to work with, but the people that they serve and just finding, true strengthen and inspiration from that.

George: So, someone, who's listening to this, how can they get engaged with Tipping Point? You have an entire portfolio. So, if someone wanted to donate obviously, we can't volunteer yet, but how can folks get engaged in helping your mission to alleviate poverty in our Bay area?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, thank you for that question. I feel like this is always such a good question. And now in particular, when people can't necessarily in-person volunteer as easily as we once can.  It's a good one. I mean, first I would say, donate obviously is a wonderful way to support organizations right now, there is, no shortage of need, certainly.

And then I also would say, just stay educated. I think that there are a lot of mis-perceptions about poverty. It's, certainly the most complex thing I've ever worked on. And I, think staying educated and staying engaged in the issues so that you really, understand and can have good conversations with your friends over your zoom, happy hours or whatever you're doing.

And then just, stay engaged, at the kind of higher level. I think that obviously a few months ago we would say Vote and that is still very true, even though the most recent election has passed us. But taking that education and making sure that you're putting it to action.  There is now such opportunity to take this moment and really grow from it and really make it a catalyst to, really create, the Bay Area and the overall community that we really can. And I think that we need a fully engaged, community and, population to do that.

George: Which leads me into my final question, which is kind of a two-parter first part is what are some of the good things that you could see coming out of this? And then the second part, because you work with so many, organizations and empowering them, what are some of the common themes of solutions that you've seen people come up with?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, great question. When we launched our emergency response we really thought about it in three phases. Obviously, there's a need to get money out the door and resources and food and rent payments out to people in that initial response. And then really thinking about what we're going to need to stand up the nonprofit, communities so that they continue to serve people through a relief kind of phase of that, which we're hopefully getting into soon.

To me, the most exciting part about this is really thinking about recovery, and what rebuilding looks like. Hopefully we never go back to, I mean, everyone is saying this, but let's never go back to quote unquote normal. Very specifically thinking about, some of the work that we’re talking to folks about, how do we use this as an opportunity to make sure that every student in our schools, is a one-to-one district, meaning that every student, has a device that they can learn on and in every household has, internet connectivity.

That is something, again, particularly here in the Bay Area, you think we can make happen. And so how do we make sure that we use this as an opportunity to make that happen. Obviously with virtual school, it's critical. It's always critical because that learning and that divide that happens without having that connectivity really, really contributes to the opportunity gap.

How do we think about being more flexible with housing, thinking about how we get people housed and safe? Thinking about that far beyond your traditional shelters, your traditional units, but thinking how the state and non-profits and the counties can come together and really think about, as my colleague, Chris Block says broadening the solution set to think about housing as the critical kind of foundation to everything else that is. How do we take workforces and build out new skill sets in this time to respond very rapidly?

Obviously, there are new opportunities, now we have an investment to develop a contract tracing workforce. How do you take that and translate it into opportunities in a quick way? I just think that there's so many opportunities. So that we never had a situation where people are so disproportionately impacted and that we can really get people the basic needs that they have regardless of what comes down the line

George: And then I think to your point engagement.

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, you know, COVID is just one piece, as we know of what many people are calling the kind of triple pandemic of the last year. And again, I always say that I have my like optimistic days and my less optimistic days if we're calling today, one of my more optimistic days. I have to believe that we will come out of this, stronger and more engaged about not just what's happening right in front of us and what's happening in our own lives but realizing that we're all connected and that to engage on issues that are affecting others in a much more regular way. And not just when it's the only thing that's on the news.  And the only thing you're hearing or talking about. I'm hopeful, that we'll get there because of everything that we've experienced over the last year.

George: And so, Marisa and Kelly, is there anything I haven't asked that you would like to talk about today?

Marisa Giller: You know, we talk a lot, George, about the idea of philanthropic capital, is putting it to use as risk capital and how philanthropy can take risks that government can't. So, investing in new ideas or new ways of doing things, and we have one project in development right now uh, a building in SOMA [south of market] it's located at Eight Thirty-Three Bryant 

George: So, Kelly, can you tell me a little bit about the Bryan Street project?

Kelly Bathgate: Yeah, sure. The Eight Thirty-Three Bryant project is part of our, chronic homeless initiative. And we're really thinking about that as a way to show how. With philanthropic support, we can be more efficient or more effective in creating new units. So, a big challenge here in San Francisco, which obviously has such expensive housing is obviously the cost per unit. And the time it takes to get a new unit created. And so, this project by using philanthropic support as sort of an impetus, and then by using, modular units we are able to cut the cost by 30%. And then also reduce the time it takes by several years. And so, we're hoping to use this, obviously 145 new units is a wonderful thing. And we're hoping to essentially use it as a proof point  so that in the future public dollars can be used, in a similar way. And we can continue to recycle those philanthropic dollars to continue to see new innovative projects.

George: Thank you. That was great. I want to thank you, Kelly and Marissa for sharing Tipping Point Community's work today, we will make sure that listeners and viewers have your contact information website and social media so they can follow all of Tipping Point Community's work and get engaged with the Tipping Point portfolio of nonprofits.

Please stay safe out there as we all work our way through our strange new normal, which hopefully will get better with more vaccines.

Kelly Bathgate: Yes, you're welcome thank you, George is was great to talk to you.

Episode Outro - Show Host George: That’s it for this episode of voices of the community. You have been listening to the voices of Kelly Bathgate the Chief Program Officer and Marisa Giller the Communications Director at Tipping Point Community.
Marisa mentioned the Taking Count Study on poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area by sociologists and political scientists from UC Berkeley, the Othering & Belonging Institute and Tipping Point Community. The Taking Count Study was a panel survey conducted between 2018 and 2019 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic’s historic impact on the bay area. The study was published in May of 2020
Here are some of the findings from the study
+ Of the 7.75 Million people in the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area 17% of the residents are living in poverty
+ 1 in 2 households cannot pay all of their bills over the course of a year
+ Thirty Percent of households went without essentials such as food, shelter and medicine because they could not afford them
+ Four out of Ten Bay Area families did not have savings to cover three months of expenses and one in five have less than Four Hundred dollars for an emergency

To find out more and get engaged in Tipping Point’s four key issues of housing, early childhood and employment and how they’re working with nonprofits, corporations and philanthropy to solve poverty for our fellow community members please go to tipping point dot org

For more context on what is Poverty, there are two definitions of Poverty from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Low Income Level which is defined as households with gross annual income of less than $25,844, and deep poverty which is defined as gross annual income of less than $12,922. According to the Public Policy Institute of California’s 2019 study of census tract date the poverty rate of the Bay Area is 17.1%, or around One Point Three Million households and the deep poverty rate is 1.68% or around one hundred and thirty thousand households.

Now for some context of poverty in San Francisco. In 2018 a City of San Francisco Performance Scorecard estimated that 10 percent of residents or around 88 thousand were in poverty. The poverty rate is much higher in communities of color. For example, 30% of African American residents experienced poverty and 13% of Latino residents experienced poverty while only 7% of white residents experienced poverty. Housing and Urban Development defined low-income limits in Francisco as $82,200 for an individual and $117,400 for a family of four in 2018, based on 80% of the area’s median income

The impact of Covid19 on residents experiencing poverty has led to Food Insecurity, "a government term for lacking access to enough good, healthy and culturally appropriate food" has more than doubled statewide and more than tripled in some Bay Area counties. In San Francisco, for instance, 18.7% of households struggled to get enough to eat in April and May, up from 5.7% in December 2018, according to the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. For more about food insecurity please listen to our interview with Katy McKnight from the San Francisco Marin Food Bank in episode two.

Series Outro: We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view, and personal stories from the voices of change-makers and their nonprofits and small businesses featured in this series. To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofits, small businesses and staff members, featured in this series please go to my web site george koster dot com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to the extended versions of these interviews and to listen to the entire series. After listening to these stories we hope that you will consider making a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada, and Kasey Nance at Citron Studios, along with the wonderful crew at the San Francisco Public Press and KSFP.

Voices of the Community is a member of Intersection for the Arts which allows us to offer you a tax deduction for your contributions. Please go to George Koster dot com and click on the donate link to make a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. While you are on our web site you can enjoy our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, and sign up for our newsletter to find out about our future shows as well as shows and events from the organizations that our included in our episodes

Take us along on your next Covid walk by subscribing to Voices of the Community on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts. You can follow us on twitter @georgekoster and we’d love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening.

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