At the Koshland Program, it’s all about solutions that begin at the local level, with deep local understanding. That’s why we’re elated when we learn of community leaders like West Berkeley Koshland Fellow, Reverend Michael McBride, was among the 12 faith leaders who met with Vice President Biden last month to give recommendations for his comprehensive plan to lower gun violence. We know that our deep investment in enhancing leadership, and building neighborhood solutions, is strengthening not only our region, but the good of our entire country.

For Michael, running the Lifelines to Healing Campaign is organic, coming out of his many years of work in West Berkeley as Pastor of the Way Christian Center, and Executive Director of BOCA-Berkeley Organizing Communities to Action ( an affiliate of PICO), and now in leading Lifelines, a national movement of the PICO network of faith-based organizations and congregations committed to addressing the causes of pervasive violence and crime in our communities, and advocating for policies and resources that contribute to the healing of our communities.

From becoming a pastor at a church, to running a local nonprofit, to now leading a national campaign, we’ve watched Michael’s passion and leadership continue to soar. The Koshland Program’s support, capacity building, training, and access to philanthropic success, have been part this recipe for success.

Today, Michael is among several of our Koshland fellows in the Bay Area region who are working together on alternative and innovative solutions to reduce violence in low income communities. From Old Skool Café in Bay View to Dig Deep Farms in Ashland/Cherryland, fellows are coming together to share strategies, approaches, and best practices on violence prevention and to describe their “recipe” for success.

Through their work, the hope is to inspire other communities to act.  That’s why we will be sponsoring an event that will highlight Koshland Fellows’ “recipe” for creating safe and healthy communities, focusing on their place-based work, including strategic partnerships created to address violence, mass incarceration and lack of job opportunities for people living in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Look out for more information in the coming months.

I’ve had the privilege of working with many heroes, amazing people doing extraordinary work in the Bay Area, through the Koshland Civic Unity Awards Program. Looking around the room during the Koshland Civic Unity Awards 30^th Anniversary celebration, I couldn’t help but beam with gratitude and be humbled to work with such dedicated grassroots leaders, folks who did not ask what is in it for them, but simply asked what they could do.

To share these inspiring stories we put together this video that spotlights the work in five Koshland Program neighborhoods:

Over the last 30 years we have worked to lift up 470 community leaders in 24 Bay Area neighborhoods. And we have taken on that work with the philosophy of Daniel E. Koshland, recognizing that the people within a community are the experts who truly understand the challenges, and can create real solutions.  These leaders care enough to make a difference in people’s lives, that’s why they are recipients of the Koshland Civic Unity Award.

As we look to the future, the Koshland Program continues to celebrate the many factors that build a strong community: involved residents, strong families, interracial understanding, and a collective appreciation of multicultural diversity.

I want to give a big, heartfelt thank you to everyone who celebrated with us last week. We hope that you will join us as we forge into the next generation of the Koshland Civic Unity Program, and continue to witness the extraordinary impact that community can make together.

This year we celebrate 30 years of the Koshland Civic Unity Program at The San Francisco Foundation. This program lifts up Bay Area community leaders — risk-takers who are bold in spirit and dedicated to the communities that they serve — and makes a five-year, $300,000 commitment to the neighborhood.

The program embodies Daniel Koshland’s legacy by nurturing leaders, and helping them develop a network of fellow leaders taking on their own communities’ challenges, building a strong web of support and innovation. The program, like the man who it honors, does not claim to have the answers, but through immersion in the community, seeks the changemakers who do. The program has now completed a full generational cycle of its own.

Today, fellows benefit from the mentorship, knowledge, and experience of previous fellows through professional and personal connections. The cycle of fellow to mentor, community leader to knowledgeable teacher, is a beautiful tribute and symbol of the grassroots change Daniel Koshland embraced and encouraged.