McKinley Square Park Foundation
Community Partners with SF Recreation & Parks, SF Parks Alliance, Bayview Police Station, Department of Public Works and Mayor's Office
In San Francisco there are over 100+ volunteer-based organizations actively working towards public safety, community engagement and volunteer projects in neighborhoods just like ours. Whether it's park advocacy or preserving neighborhood open spaces --each plays an important role in supporting healthy communities.
In May 2009, the McKinley Square Park Foundation (MSPF) joined the list of volunteer based organizations under the leadership of the San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA) fiscal sponsorship program.
During the first (12) months; we focused our goals on establishing outreach efforts, creating productive communication channels with city and state agencies and introducing ourselves to the many stake holders and departments located within each of the agencies related to McKinley Square and our neighborhood.
Today, we continue to work closely with our community partners like Recreation and Parks Department (RPD), SFPD, Department of Public Works (DPW) and Caltrans on a weekly basis exploring grants and long-term funding solutions to benefit the area on public safety and preservation.
Without their guidance, support and necessary approvals and —our efforts would not be possible.
From day one, our primary interest has been in public safety and facilitating the funding process to support improvements on behalf of the many individuals and neighborhood groups that reside in the areas surrounding McKinley Square.
We wanted to make it easier for our neighbors to get involved by streamlining the extensive process and partnerships involved with partnering with these local and state agencies.
By actively listening and working closely with our neighborhood partners, their dedicated staff and learning the individual guidelines and policies involved within each organization- we've made a significant impact on addressing public safety at McKinley and the surrounding areas.
Our Board of Trustees
In the early stages of any worthy effort, most recognize the value of leading off with strong leadership and a known history of experience and excellence on the topic. The effort has to start off right with credibility, respect and trust in order to get off the ground—let alone succeed over time.
Our efforts have followed this philosophy.
We recognize the value of surrounding all of our efforts with a stellar group of well respected individuals stemming from our local community.
Each individual on our board has a known history of solid community advocacy, successful park project leadership and outstanding fund raising expertise to meet these goals.
One of the primary goals of the board of trustees is to provide solid learning, guidance and experience across all areas of public safety, neighborhood beautification and implementing successful park projects.
The volunteer board serves as an advisory team to the Executive Director who manages the day to day efforts on behalf of McKinley Square.
Together with our local area partnerships highlighted above; their advice and direction across the public safety and neighborhood issues-- our board of advisor's is able to provide the much needed communication skills, conflict resolution and diversity across everything we do.
You can learn more about their individual accomplishments in the Board of Trustee section.
Our History & Park Partners
In July of 2009, we formalized our written contract and fiscal sponsorship agreement with San Francisco Parks Alliance as noted above based on a letter of recommendation from Steven Cismowski, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (RPD).
Both RPD and SFPA along with the many local area agencies (e.g. SFPD, DPW, Caltrans, CHP, Mayors Office) serve as the primary resource of information and direction assisting us with continued learning and over site in meeting our public safety and funding goals.
This large network of citywide partnerships is seen throughout the city in other neighborhoods allowing volunteer led organizations like ours to be fiscally sponsored as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. As an official park partner of San Francisco Parks Alliance, we also fall under the same legal and financial guidelines and protections of other area groups providing valuable resources that we could not have normally had access to.
About San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA) and Parks Partner Programs
We are firmly committed to working with every neighbor and individual groups on a variety of healthy funding activities, outreach and raising awareness through consensus based community design, planning and wellness programs benefiting McKinley Square and support our open spaces.
The Parks Partner program combines SFPA's fundraising expertise, financial services, insurance, and administrative support with our foundations funding programs on behalf of all community groups, or individual projects. These funds are used towards public safety issues and neighborhood beautification projects determined under a formal community outreach process which RPD designs, leads and hosts.
For more than 30 years San Francisco Parks Alliance has built a reputation as a leader in parks and open spaces. Our strategic partnership with SFPA Park Partners will promote this reputation throughout all of our efforts opening up more opportunities for the benefit of McKinley.
SFPA is the premier support group for San Francisco parks, recreation centers and open spaces. We are grateful for their continued support.
Read more here...
The McKinley Square Park Foundation provides facilitation of the funding and grant writing process. We work with everyone- from individuals to local area neighborhood groups seeking funding to benefit McKinley Square and the surrounding neighborhood areas.
Simply put, we spend many volunteer hours exploring possible grants and funding options for related to public safety and beautification projects. We provide the basics including agency coordination, administrative services, grant writing, agency approvals and coordination of funding projects. Everything we do falls under RPD/SFPA approvals at all times.
Step 1: Project Submission
Please submit a (1) page summary of your proposed project for review. This will help us identify the appropriate local government agency (i.e. land owner) in order to begin the process.
We will help to coordinate the review process for you and begin to set-up the scheduling to move the project through the introductions and formal process.
Step 2: Approval Process
If your initial draft summary brief has met the RPD and SFPA guidelines and been approved by the
appropriate local government agency;
we will contact you regarding any next steps including schedules, agency recommendations and funding opportunities based on your goals
After you have received the appropriate approvals; we will send you a confirmation email to schedule your first on-site meeting with us to review the project details, guidelines and master schedule.
At that time, we will go over the funding process in greater detail providing you with a list of items to complete which each phase under the project.
One of the most important steps we require is that you and/or your neighborhood group take ownership of their individual projects, including documenting volunteers, community outreach and hosting neighborhood meetings related to the project.
This is a very important part of the funding process.
That's It. Pretty Simple.
We are available to assist with most questions in order to quickly navigate the proposed project through the funding process towards implementing successful projects.
This includes getting you in touch with the appropriate agency representatives and coordinating schedules and paperwork.
MSPF will draft and submit your final applications including maps, area photos, approved architectural landscape drawings, accounting and cost sheets, agency signatures, authorizations, letters of recommendations, community match forms and much, much more!
It is a very detailed process which requires many, MANY hours of dedication from MSPF but we agree that it's well worth it.
Please Note: We do not approve, deny, lead or design any community projects. All of our efforts fall under the direction of the local area government agencies including Recreation and Parks, Department of Public Works, Caltrans as well as our fiscal sponsor; San Francisco Parks Trust.
Get Involved! Healthy Communities! Healthy Parks.
