SF CBO Support Project Overview

The CBO Support Project connects community-based organizations (CBOs) with SF State’s Master of Public Administration (MPA) faculty and students to share resources and support mission-serving programs

Does your 501(c)3 CBO provide activities/services that directly support the well-being of San Francisco community members?

Are the staff who manage and/or coordinate your organization’s mission-serving programs interested in learning about best practices for nonprofit management and receiving support to strengthen the planning, delivery, communications, and evaluation of their programs?

If so, your CBO is invited to nominate one or more of its mission-serving programs to participate in the CBO Support Project, a highly structured, semester-long project offered through a graduate level course in nonprofit administration and management in SF State’s MPA program (PA 745: Nonprofit Administration).

In addition to nominating up to three of your mission-serving programs to participate in the CBO Support Project, filling out the organizational profile on the CBO Support Project Database allows your organization to indicate an interest in receiving additional support opportunities from SF State’s MPA graduate students and faculty.

What is a mission-serving program?

Mission-serving programs refer to the grouping of activities/services developed and implemented by a CBO in order to achieve its organizational mission. Examples of mission-serving programs: A parenting workshop for neighborhood residents with pre-school age children; an employment and training center for transitional housing residents; a college-prep program for foster youth; a project to educate community members about HIV prevention; a series of urban agriculture classes at a community garden.

How the CBO Support Project works

The CBO Support Project focuses on supporting CBOs and their staff at the program level:

CBOs register their organization, fill out an organizational profile, and nominate up to three of their mission-serving programs through the CBO Support Project Database (Note: Individual programs must be nominated by a CBO staff member who manages/coordinates the program).

For each semester-long offering of the CBO Support Project, up to 10 mission-serving programs from different CBOs will be selected to participate. The CBO staff members who nominated the selected programs become CBO Support Project Partners (CBO Partners).

CBO Partners prepare for and attend a 3-hour Logic Model Workshop at SF State’s downtown campus.

CBO Partners facilitate a 2-3 hour meeting with key stakeholders to share what they learned from the workshop and prioritize/customize a list of 10 pre-designed support projects to meet the needs of their program.

CBO Partners attend a 90-minute planning meeting at SF State’s downtown campus to meet their graduate student support team, refine and/or approve the support project work plan, and discuss details and logistics.

Graduate student support teams carry out their support projects over two months and present their findings and recommendations to their CBO Partner.

The majority of required activities and time commitment for CBO Partners takes place at the front-end of the project. The required activities prepare CBO Partners to select and customize support projects that are a good fit for both their program needs and capacity for involvement.

How your CBO and program staff can benefit

Professional development for program staff
CBO Support Project Partners (CBO Partners) learn about nonprofit management trends, resources, and best practices from SF State’s MPA faculty and students.

Logic model development for your program
CBO Partners receive guided support from MPA faculty to develop/re-develop a logic model for their program. CBO Partners learn how the process and end results of logic models can be applied in support of program planning, delivery, communications, and/or evaluation

Increased knowledge and capacity to strengthen your program
Under the guidance of MPA faculty and CBO Partners, graduate student support teams create and implement work plans for the particular program needs identified by CBO Partners.

Partnership building with SF State’s MPA students and faculty
Participating CBO Partners will be able to express an interest in receiving additional support from MPA students and faculty at the end of the CBO Support Project.

PA 745: Nonprofit Administration

PA 745 familiarizes MPA students with key internal management functions, best practices, common pitfalls, and emerging trends in the nonprofit sector. The course provides students with a toolbox of resources they need to comprehend the essential components of nonprofit management, as well as to anticipate and address common management challenges.

The learning outcomes for PA 745 require students to demonstrate an understanding of a range of nonprofit management concepts and their application, an understanding of nonprofit management challenges and strategies for mitigating the impacts of those challenges, and the ability to synthesize theoretical and applied literature as it relates to contemporary issues in nonprofit administration.