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New Grant Fund to Connect the Dots Across the California Housing System

The paradigm that created California’s housing crisis will not be the paradigm that solves it. We need to see beyond individual barriers, opportunities, and trends – connecting the dots between them to create approaches that make real progress, that are regenerative, equitable, and collaborative. The California Housing Systems Innovators Network launched the Innovation Fund in spring 2024 to try to do just that: to enable innovative home-builders, community-builders, policy-makers, and other changemakers to stretch to new paradigms. Hosted by Build It Green, the inaugural round of funding offered $200,000 in $5,000 to $50,000 grants, received applications totaling $400,000, and ultimately funded eight transformative projects.

We also used it as an opportunity to live our values by using trust-based, participatory philanthropy, testing regenerative and equity frameworks to guide applicants project design and supporting their development of holistic thinking. We were amazed at the range of projects striving for new paradigms.

Living Our Values as a Funder: Sharing Decision Making Power

The Innovation Fund incorporated elements of trust-based and participatory philanthropy. Innovators doing the work on the ground bring broad and diverse experience to the table, and we believe they are best positioned to connect money to potential impact.

Build It Green guided a committee of Network members to think deeply about how to make a fund that would emphasize collaboration, equity, and regeneration at every step in the process. We used the power sharing framework below to explicitly state how decisions were made and by whom to practice these values. Although Build It Green capitalized and administered the fund, final decision-making power was transferred to a committee of eight volunteer members from the Network. They are changemakers that influence the California housing system from different angles. They work in community-based organizations, government, and the private sector across the Bay Area, the Central Coast, and the Sacramento Valley. This model of trust-based and participatory philanthropy redistributed the traditional power balance between funder and the experts doing work on the ground. In so doing, it attracted, evaluated, and funded what we believe to be potentially transformative projects.

Inspiring Our Values in Project Design: Frameworks for Regeneration, Collaboration and Equity

To build the transformative capacity of people in communities to see systems holistically, we offered applicants two frameworks to use when conceptualizing their projects: Levels of Paradigm and Three Lines of Work (see diagrams for more detail). The use of these frameworks cultivated thinking from places of abundance and potential to serve and sustain human and ecological vitality. Applicants reported the act of applying to the fund encouraged them to think more deeply about equity, collaboration, and regenerative design and supported their team in conceptualizing their work differently than they had in the past.

The Levels of Paradigm Framework is used to change the way one looks at the world, enabling a paradigm shift in thinking that can
lead to more regenerative outcomes. A basic interpretation of these levels is:

  • Extract Value/Value Return: People and institutions react in their own self-interest by asking “What value (money or otherwise) do I get from this?”
  • Arrest Disorder: People and institutions react from a paradigm that asks, “How can we stop ongoing extraction and harm?”
  • Do Good: People and institutions react from their own perspective, asking “What do I think will make this better, and how do I implement that change for others?”
  • Evolve Capacity: Increasing the capability of people and systems, people and institutions see themselves as a part of a living system to ask “What is possible here, and how can we realize that potential, while also making natural and human systems stronger and more adaptable?”

The goal of using this framework is to be conscious of the paradigm, the level of thinking, you are employing. While you may consider the opportunity to operate at a higher level paradigm, no paradigm is inherently more valuable than another. An Arrest Disorder paradigm is necessary when one must stop ongoing harm. Designing with an Evolve Capacity paradigm enables teams to think systemically, holistically and regeneratively, conscious of the impact of their work on multiple levels. Projects that go through this learning journey can become more conscious of why they make certain programmatic design and development choices, and are able to build different capabilities, pursue different next steps, and produce different outcomes.

The Three Lines of Work Framework is a framework that bridges regenerative thinking with an equity lens. It invites teams to consider how addressing work at multiple scales (individuals, teams and a larger system) will lead to better outcomes for all.

Truly transformative systems change work begins with participants’ own inner journeys (First Line of Work), in connection with the collective journey and efforts of their team (Second Line of Work). Systems-level work (Third Line of Work) is most transformative when it is built upon the foundation of other Lines of Work. Without this grounding, there is potential for a lack of self-awareness, which can unknowingly contribute to harm.

The goal of using this framework is to consider how a project might pursue multiple Lines of Work simultaneously. It also enables us to align our personal and professional development with our values and the work we do in the world.

Framework is based on work by Regenesis Group

Through a working session with interested applicants, we coached teams to use these tools to guide the design and development of their projects with the goal of creating more regenerative and transformative work. In conversations with applicants, we heard anecdotally that while it did take more work and thinking to consider these frameworks, they really did push applicant teams to think about collaboration, equity and regeneration, and could even be fun!

Witnessing our Values at Work: An Interconnected Web of Projects

Taken as a whole, the eight funded projects connect people, climate resilience, and ecological housing strategies. They use a variety of methods to either cultivate community-based governance or evolve the development and construction industries — key themes of the work of our Innovator’s Network — or both.

Community-based governance projects put power in the hands of people that have been marginalized, in order to accelerate equitable communities and housing development. In the first round, the Fund will support community groups in South Sacramento and Berkeley that bring community priorities to ongoing development projects. Other fund projects will create resources to help communities inform building decarbonization efforts and invest in cooperatively owned housing projects.

Development and construction industry projects embrace evolution in the sector, which has been brought on by innovation, workers’ changing expectations, desire to have meaningful impact, and demands that they better serve communities. This round, the Fund will support projects that build the capacity of housing developers of all sizes to approach their work regeneratively, equitably, and collaboratively.

Read more about the funded grant projects and their intersectional work here.

Adding Value as a Fund Committee Member: Thoughts from robyn eason

Volunteer positions can be thankless and extractive. In order to live our values, the Fund needed to structure the Committee so it didn’t feel transactional or exploitive and nurtured individual growth and development. Speaking as a Committee member, the process was informative and nourishing in more ways than one.

We each read about trust-based and participatory philanthropy. Some of us dove deep into the Crappy Funding Practices conversation. Similar to Build It Green’s commitment to us, our Committee knew early on that enabling a supportive and flexible grantee application experience was paramount. Our early conversations helped us get to know each other’s personality and viewpoints and we went through a bias-awareness exercise to cultivate awareness. While building the application process and request for proposals (RFP), we thoughtfully disagreed, offered new perspectives, and invited fresh ideas. And when it came to making grant decisions, we leaned on that mutual respect and knowledge sharing.

We clearly defined power-sharing throughout the process. We knew when Build It Green was simply “informing” us of a decision — our budget, for example. We knew when we were making collaborative decisions with Build It Green staff — like determining which frameworks to use in the RFP. And we knew when we were fully in the driver’s seat, making decisions that could not be vetoed by the organization — most importantly, which proposals to fund. This not only helped us achieve beneficial outcomes from this process, it allowed us to embody the community-centered governance approach we hope to see in projects.

Not all participatory grantmaking processes are created this way. But when we remain aligned with our values and invite ourselves to imagine what can be, it leads to beautiful collaboration that does the best by the folks involved.

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If you’d like to learn more about the grant-making process, the Innovation Fund, or our Innovators Network work, please get in touch with Victor Tran at [email protected]
Stay tuned as we share more about the work of the Innovation Fund awardees as it comes to fruition!

About the Contributors

robyn eason

AICP | LEED AP ND & BD+C | Hon AIA
robyn is a fun-loving, challenge-seeking professional who exists to do the work of a human being embodying empathy, compassion, and love. Her professional experience incorporates the vast array of systems thinking, strategy, & expertise necessary to nurture human-centered approaches to sustainability & climate action through change management and targeted universalism. She currently works as strategic advisor for several organizations within California and beyond, providing subject matter expertise and guidance across industries, illuminating the wisdom within teams to collectively problem-solve for innovative solutions, and co-stewarding projects as needed.

Mia Arter

Director of Network Stewardship

Mia Luhtanen Arter (she/her) helps groups make better decisions and improve their governance. With experience in organizational development and non-profit strategy, she specializes in human-centered stakeholder collaboration. Mia serves as Network Stewardship Director of Build It Green (BIG), facilitating the Innovators Network. Through the Network, builders, designers, developers, advocates, community-based leaders, decision-makers, and more build community and work together to fundamentally transform California’s housing system to better serve human and ecological vitality.

Sponsored by the
San Francisco Foundation

About Build It Green

Most Californians would agree that there are better ways to build homes and develop and maintain our communities. Build It Green (BIG) believes that regenerative communities—which are not extractive, go beyond sustainability, and build potential for adaptation and resilience—are the way forward so that everyone can live in a place that’s affordable, equitable, and healthy.

In our first two decades, via our GreenPoint rated system and other programs, BIG worked with builders to normalize green homes throughout California. After a successful history focused on individual homes, BIG expanded our focus to transforming communities as a whole. That’s why today we connect and inspire changemakers— like developers, community advocates, nonprofits, government officials, and more—from all over the state to break down silos, form new partnerships, and come up with innovative approaches to our communities and homes that don’t compromise on the things that matter most

Alex Coba

Communication Associate

As a proud California native from Stockton, Alex brings a wealth of experience and a versatile skill set. He has a solid communication background with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Public Relations from California State University, Chico. Alex is adept at strategic communications and media relations, with experience gathering and sharing stories from his local communities that uplift the unique spirit and values of those places. He is excited to join Build It Green, where he can apply his talents to further BIG’s mission to help communities across California thrive