Date/Time

06/14/2024
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm (EDT)

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Please join Loeb and GSD alums for the 2024 Loeb Collaboratory on Friday, June 14th, at 12:00 (noon) EDT!

The Loeb Collaboratory is fundamentally a mutual aid society. During this round, you’ll learn about three (3) new projects, offer commitments of support to help them launch, receive brief updates on past projects, and have the chance to share your own mini (under one minute) pitch.

If you haven’t joined us before, this is your chance to experience the Collaboratory process. We’ve provided some background and a summary below. However, the only real way to understand how it works is to participate! In order to respect everyone’s time, we’ll move quickly and facilitate tightly; the entire program will be completed in little more than an hour. No prep is required—just RSVP and get ready for a ride!

This year, GSD alums are invited to fully participate in the Collaboratory. Starting with our next round, we’ll welcome project proposals from both GSD and Loeb alums. As you listen to this year’s proposals, perhaps you’ll get ideas for how this amazing network could help translate one of your ideas into reality.

Event Details:

  • Friday, June 14, 2024
  • 12:00 PM–1:30 PM EDT
  • REGISTER HERE for a calendar invite and Zoom link

See you soon!

Your Loeb Collaboratory Planning Team
Cheryl Hughes LF ’04, Sally Young LF ’21, Arif Khan LF ’16, Chris Calott LF ’12, and Eli Spevak LF ’14

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2024 Loeb Collaboratory Proposals

Builders of Change
Will Hunter LF ’22

Builders of Change (BoC) is a start-up on a mission to inspire, connect, and empower a new generation of diverse entrepreneurs to create positive change in cities globally. Launched by the founder of the London School of Architecture, BoC will combine an online media platform with personalized mentorship hosted in a network of participating cities. By year 10, the goal is to have over 500 purpose-driven ventures in 20 cities around the world. At this early stage, BoC is seeking to leverage the Collaboratory to expand the network of collaborators, partners, and supporters.

Modular Workforce Housing in the Breadbasket: A Case Study in Ojai / California’s Central Coast
Jennifer Siegal LF ’03

California’s bountiful Central Coast, often regarded as our country’s breadbasket, is experiencing the same dire housing shortages as larger cities throughout the state and country. This Collaboratory proposal aims to harness the collective expertise and skills of Loeb and GSD alumni to explore effective strategies for funding, developing, and delivering modular workforce housing in California’s Central Coast region.

Focused first on a pilot project with a community partner in Ojai to house teachers and essential workers, this proposal envisions a development model replicable throughout the Central Coast region to meet the housing needs of underserved groups, including farmworkers and rural low-income residents.

Vision Plan for the City of McMinnville, Oregon’s Library in a Park
Stephen Goldsmith LF ’00

The goal of this project is to provide the community with ideas for the redevelopment of the city’s library, located in McMinnville’s City Park. The park site is just over 16 acres and currently houses the historic 1912 Carnegie Library building with an adjacent 1983 library addition. Also on the site is an outdated aquatic center, playground, an old mill site, an active floodplain, an arboretum waiting for curation, and a vacant historic house. City leaders describe the library as the park’s hub and the other elements as spokes, all functioning as an integrated ecosystem. Located along a state highway and across from the city’s main street, the site needs to honor the original indigenous presence, culture, and land rights. McMinnville, with a population of about 34,000 people, is located in Yamhill County in the Willamette Valley Wine Country, about 40 miles south of Portland.

How the Collaboratory Works

The Loeb Collaboratory is based on the Civic Collaboratory, of which Loeb alums Cheryl Hughes LF ’04 and Shamichael Hallman LF ’22 are members. The founder of the Civic Collaboratory, Eric Liu, defines the Civic Collaboratory as a “network of catalytic leaders from across the political spectrum and many domains — immigrant rights, veterans advocacy, civics education, voting reform, tech in government, arts, and culture, worker organizing, corporate citizenship, and more.” This model was so impactful that Cheryl Hughes proposed that it could provide the opportunity for Fellows to give back to the Fellowship in a way that was attainable to everyone while deepening relationships across the organization.

After several years of Collaboratories with the Loeb alumni community, we’re interested in expanding to include GSD alums as well.

In our Collaboratories thus far, over a dozen Loeb Fellows have received more than 250 commitments of support from their Fellows, with an estimated value in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of the Loeb Collaboratory pitches have also received funding from the grant program and other funders.

Each Collaboratory is held virtually and lasts 1–1.5 hours. Minimizing the time commitment to attend boosts participation, which increases the odds that presenters get the support they’re seeking.

Details:

  • We gather to make personal commitments to aid presenters based on project needs as well as our own interests and talents. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to offer firm commitments of help. This may consist of social, intellectual, institutional, and/or financial capital, and it will be the responsibility of those receiving and giving commitments to follow up on them.
  • Each 7–8 minute presentation closes with some “asks” from the presenter. Then we’ll open the floor for commitments, starting with the phrase “I commit…”
  • Critique and shared commentary are important parts of any process, but they’re not the point of the Collaboratory—hence why we start with the phrase, “I commit…”
  • Commitments vary based on the presenter. Here are a few examples:
    • I commit to connecting with you offline to explore a few ideas for collaboration with you
    • I commit to meeting with you to discuss your program design
    • I commit to connecting you to the following individual
    • I commit to sharing research that I know of that might inform your project
    • I commit to attending/hosting a design charrette for you
    • I commit to introducing you to the program officer or foundation president at…
    • I commit to meeting with you to help you create a funding strategy
    • I commit to sharing this with key allies who will put it out into the world
    • I commit to introducing you to journalists or media who might be interested in this
  • These are just a few examples of ways that we can support each other. We aren’t expecting anyone to make long-term or financial commitments to the projects, although both may be welcome. Rather, you are offering your connections and assets to help/aid your colleagues move their work forward. Isn’t this what we do naturally as Loeb Fellows and GSD alums? The Collaboratory is just providing a more open process to do so.
  • All the commitments will be recorded in the meeting notes and will be distributed to the presenters within two weeks after our gathering. It is the responsibility of the presenters and those who made a commitment to connect with one another to fulfill the commitment. Neither the Loeb Fellowship office, GSD office, nor the Loeb Collaboratory co-chairs will be responsible for follow-up.
  • Mixed into the program, we’ll include short updates on projects from a few past presenters.
  • At the end, we’ll open the floor for anyone to share mini-pitches (under a minute each) on initiatives they’re working on that could use support.

 

Questions? Contact Loeb Fellowship at [email protected].