Our values, strengths, and aspirations shape our work
Values
Listen first. Take time to learn people’s stories.
Think big. Encourage new and nontraditional ideas.
Neighborhood scale. Focus on the hyperlocal context.
Intentional outreach. Try our best to reach our most socially isolated neighbors.
Local talent. Promote students, early career professionals, artists, and small business owners in our work.
Strengths
Bringing great San Francisco residents together. We have a strong track record of convening San Francisco residents to build connections, celebrate their neighbors, participate in co-design sessions, volunteer, and find opportunities for local leaders from different backgrounds to collaborate on shared goals.
Bringing great San Francisco organizations together. We love identifying opportunities for existing organizations in San Francisco to collaborate, support each other’s work, and multiply their impact.
Doing things no one has done before. We take pride in our firsts, including: building the first prototype in the country of a digital neighborhood bulletin board, running the country’s first Good Neighbor Hackathon, being the first city in the country to have six local newsrooms host community listening sessions, and launching the inaugural SF Good Neighbor Week.
Amplifying local tech for good in San Francisco. We are a hub for local tech for good projects that are built by and for San Francisco residents. We partner with local hack nights and tech for good groups to elevate community engagement with long-term civic tech projects across San Francisco neighborhoods.
Workforce Development. Training and development is core to how we operate. We are proud to provide learning and development opportunities, peer mentorship, and professional career coaching to 100% of our volunteers. We thoughtfully customize volunteer opportunities and have helped dozens of San Francisco residents get better jobs.
Aspirations
Reaching San Francisco neighbors who experience the most social isolation. While we’ve had success in our work across SF neighborhoods, we are deepening our community engagement with residents and neighborhoods experiencing more social isolation. A specific focus in 2026 will be supporting San Francisco residents who are facing domestic violence.
Supporting local artists. We partner with local artists in every neighborhood we engage in. In 2026 we are doubling down on our commitment to amplify the work of local artists in all of our programming.
Our programs strengthen neighbor-to-neighbor relationships, build resident-to-institution connections, and encourage hyperlocal innovation.
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Join us
We are looking for volunteers to join our efforts in 2026.