The Community Partnerships program conducted by UCSF's office of Community and Governmental Relations began two years ago when the Rockefeller Foundation awarded a grant of $100,000 to Community and Governmental Relations. The foundation was interested in developing workforce and other economic opportunities associated with the development of UCSF's new Mission Bay Campus.

Encouraged by the Rockefeller Foundation, the university began conversations with the Southeast Neighborhood Jobs Initiative Roundtable (SNJIR), an organization committed to economic development in its community. After several years of planning efforts between UCSF and the leadership of SNJIR, the foundation made an award that supports partnership activities. Irene Agnos, Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations, describes the partnership between this community-based organization and the university as an "arranged marriage that is a win-win situation for both parties."

The funds allowed the university to establish a Community Partnerships program and implement workforce and business development projects that target the neighborhoods of Bayview Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley and Potrero Hill. The projects bring together a number of university departments in partnership with community-based organizations to provide economic benefits for residents and businesses. These activities support UCSF's 1996 long-range development plan goal of providing economic opportunities to the neighbors of existing or new UCSF campuses.

"I liked my internship and the people I work with. This was a good learning experience and I got a full-time job out of it," said Karimah Smith, a 23-year-old mother of four from the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. She recently completed her internship in the Mount Zion breast care center as a part of the Community Outreach Internship Program (COIP) here at the university. Karimah is now in a permanent, career position at the Cancer Center and an excellent example of the impact a program like this can have on the lives of those transitioning into the workforce for the first time.

COIP is a five-month internship program that has worked with 48 graduates of Florence Crittenton Services (FCS) over the past eight years through Learning and Earning = Achievement and Power, an administrative & clerical skills training program. UCSF and FCS collaborate to provide job skills and work experience to young women transitioning from welfare to work. "This program is a way for the university to diversify its pool of employees and at the same time provide meaningful job training opportunities for those most in need," commented Crystal Morris, manager of the university's Temporary Employment Program.

Another partnership is between the Office of Research Services and Community and Governmental Relations and is called the Community Employment in the Bioscience Industry (CEBI) program. This pilot program is a chance for residents from the southeast sector to begin capitalizing on job opportunities in the Life Sciences. As Genentech Hall opens and the Mission Bay Campus is developed, residents, trained by Young Community Developers, Inc, a job-training agency in Bayview Hunter's Point, are participating in an innovative training program.

Interns in this program complete an introductory course of training at YCD and move into a paid internship experience in ORS. They rotate through several areas and learn about opportunities in Animal Care, Environmental Health and Safety and Cell Culture. Eugene Lau, director of Environmental Health and Safety at UCSF, says, "The skills trainees get in this paid internship will allow them to find work with UCSF or with a private biotech company."

The Community Partnerships program also creates partnerships that will build the capacity of local businesses to act as vendors for the university. The Business Development Outreach activities exemplify the university's ability to act as an economic catalyst for our neighbors. The strategy is two-pronged.

One approach is holding business outreach seminars like the one that took place on November 9, 2002 at the Southeast Community Facility in Bayview Hunters Point. Fifty-six business owners and mangers came to find out about opportunities for small vendors and to meet some of the people who can help them navigate the university's seemingly overwhelming vendor system. One business owner said it was great to get the "inside scoop on how to do business with UCSF". She felt like she got "a lot of valuable information" that she "would not have been able to find on my own." This is the second time CGR, working with Business Affirmative Action, Facilities Management, Campus Auxiliary Services and Materiel Management, put on this event.

The newest of the business development activities is a pilot project that provides business development consulting with education about university purchasing and university contracting practices for six businesses from the southeast sector. The businesses, which will already have a neighborhood-based workforce or have committed to hire locally, will receive consultation from Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a local nonprofit business development organization, as well as coaching from UCSF departments. The goal of the program is to encourage the departments at Mission Bay to "Buy Local" in their low-value purchasing.

"The key is to get these vendors aligned with how we do business and then getting them access to the people making these low-value purchases," said Diane K. McGee of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity,, one of the departmental partners for this project. The effects of workforce and economic development activities like these can reverberate throughout these neighborhoods and have far-reaching effects on its residents, economy and vitality.

SNJIR's Director, Angelo King says of the partnership activities that, "Projects like this benefit all participants. The neighboring community not only receives increased job and business opportunities but lines of communication begin to open, laying the groundwork for long-lasting substantive collaborations. The university increases its pool of qualified vendors and workers, allowing for more robust competition and a more diverse workforce and marketplace."

The Rockefeller Foundation will feature the UCSF/SNJIR partnership activities in their forthcoming publication, "Stories of Work, Stories of Hope." For more information about the Community Partnerships Program, please contact UCSF Community Partnerships Coordinator Lisa Gray, UCSF Community & Governmental Relations, at 514-2651.

Source: Lisa Gray

Last updated April 11, 2005