Our Impact
We have accomplished a lot in just a year and a half.
Sister Cities Project has been a 501 (c)(3) for a little over a year. Our current Leadership Team of professionals has been working together consistently for most of that time. We are still a 100% volunteer fueled non-profit.
Early on, SCP identified 3 impact areas workforce development, business growth and cultural exchanges that bind together around their common mission of creating racial equality and economic equity. Our impact areas intersect as part of a thriving Ecosystem which is what the (ECO) refers to. Below are the programs that anchor each area of impact:
(Eco)Exchange™:
(formerly cultural tours) – designed to form relationships and understanding between our sister cities partnership residents. Based on the idea that relationships are at the heart of eliminating racial inequality.
We have produced over 25 of these events. We recently leased space in a co-work office (Synergy) on Imperial Avenue in Encanto and have moved some of these events to that space. Our last (Eco)Exchange event featured Local Entrepreneurs and drew a large audience, hosted at this location. Our next (Eco)Exchange will be coordinated with Soul Swap. We are scheduling these once a month for each SCP partnership to build our network of panelist speakers and to give time to draw a large audience. In addition to these, there have been countless one-off events that bring people together in both Communities around art, music and beach/surfing. We know anecdotally that North County residents and South County residents have connected to support one another.
This activity is critical to creating an expanding network of relationships that support SESD and normalize residents of neighboring communities visiting and being warmly welcomed to North County communities
(Eco)Agency™:
A digital agency built to provide workforce development for black youth. It’s goal is to give access to the earning power of the digital economy and provide a career trajectory or entrepreneurship opportunity for black youth in SESD.
SCP is fortunate to have professionals with expertise who can give volunteer time to capacity building. Our grant team is comprised of two experts with experience in grant writing and fund-raising. The team with the help of SCP Leadership wrote a 5 year proposal for a Workforce Development program we want to implement. It’s central focus is on disconnected black youth. It’s secondary goal is to provide marketing support to Black Women Entrepreneurs in our (Eco)Hub. Our proposal is in effect a guide to build the infrastructure for this, and we currently are seeking a financial partner to enable us to staff the program beyond our second cohort organized to start in November 2021.
- Our second cohort is already populated currently by 7 youth who have signed on and we anticipate adding to that from our emerging partnership with the E3 High School Internship team.
- The SCP (Eco)Agency cohorts are funded partly by the Workforce Partnership, and ultimately longer term by Corporate sponsors who hire.
- Our proposal is being shared currently with a small group of San Diego Foundations. We think the County might want to fund this first-of-its-kind program for black youth in San Diego.
(Eco)HUB™:
An entrepreneurial ecosystem online and offline designed to help Black Women Entrepreneurs build their business into a generational wealth asset. Provides resources, people and mentoring to grow their business.
(Eco)HUB Community:
The SCP (Eco)Hub™ is a growing private online and offline Community of over 140+ Black Women Entrepreneurs (BWE) who attended our inaugural “San Diego Black Women Entrepreneurs Summit” in November 2020 to January 2021. It is designed to be an intentional business ecosystem providing resources and services to BWE in a Community setting where a small business Entrepreneur can experience very robust operational support and move from Solo-preneur to a Team business model able to implement and sustain a growth strategy.
Our (Eco)HUB has evolved. Here are some of the milestones and numbers
- First-ever San Diego Black Women Entrepreneur Summit Series - 4-Part Series - 300 people attended
- Listened to and learned from 18 Black Women Entrepreneurs share their entrepreneurial journey, open up about barriers and bias and describe the opportunities they see for their business entities.
- With Data from the Summit Series, research from the Kansa City Federal Reserve Bank and Consulting from Dr. Dell Gines of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, we built and launched the SCP (Eco)HUB in March of 2021,, 30 days after the last Summit Series.
- Engaging regularly, 140+ Black Women Entrepreneurs
- 30 Entrepreneurs have opted into the online Community and are part of events and working with resources on behalf of their businesses.
- 15 Support Members have joined to support Entrepreneurs
- Events to Engage with Entrepreneurs and 1:1 consults have informed our Programming
- Programming Designed and out for Sponsorship and Funding in Proposal Form with large banks
- Social Media Support Platform Launching in November 2021 for Entrepreneurs in the (Eco)HUB Community
SCP is in the early stages of recruiting large Fortune 500 Companies for a Corporate Social Responsibility Network:
One of SCP’s leadership experts is an Executive who is working nationally with a large corporation on Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. Through his network we are able to access Corporate Executives with initiatives that dovetail with the SCP mission. We have designed a Corporate Social Responsibility program that gives Companies a way to support the work of Racial Equality and Economic Equity with financial investment. It also aggregates large professional Employee Resource Groups to bring their professional skills to our impact audience in a meaningful way.
Leadership Team Focus:
The work of a non-profit is always to build the capacity to implement the mission. Sister Cities Project is at a point in our evolution where we will need financial partners to invest in our impact work. We are in active conversations about this for our impact areas with both corporate sponsors, banks and foundations. The funding will enable us to grow and sustain the infrastructure that is designed to fuel momentum in economic equity for black people and to cultivate relationships between residents of our Sister City partnerships.