Featuring Project New Village
In the Spring of 2023, on the heels of receiving a $ 1 million Innovation Initiative grant from Alliance Healthcare Foundation, Project New Village (PNV) applied for SVP’s capacity building support. The community-based nonprofit is poised to achieve a monumental moment in its history: the development and opening of The Village – a community food hub in Southeast San Diego. To prepare for such growth, the organization is transitioning from grassroots to a much larger social enterprise model.
A team of Partners including Tom Watlington (Lead), Leena Gupta, and Andy Pendoley helped to lay the groundwork for the new mixed-use facility dedicated to creating a vibrant, healthy space to connect community members with fresh healthy foods and useful wellness practices. SVP provided PNV leadership with deep analysis and a variety of tools to assess its current programs, administrative functions, and budgeting process in anticipation of how the nonprofit may evolve to operate The Village.
Together, the SVP team and Project New Village’s Managing Director Diane Moss and Grant Writer Janelle Devera co-designed a flexible learning process.
“[Our team] took time to prepare us for anticipated challenges and gave us options for handling real life situations, like managing headcounts, inventory and revenue.” - Diane Moss, Project New Village Managing Director
Over the course of the nine-month engagement, SVP conducted a gaps analysis survey to identify where PNV could invest in its administrative functions and proposed an organizational structure to grow management staff to grow over time. The team also guided leadership in using a program evaluation tool to compare its current and planned programs for strategic decision making. As a final step, PNV created a revenue forecast model and expense budget for its current operations with the intention of using a similar process to anticipate budget implications as it evolves.
Residents in Southeast San Diego, one of the City’s most ethnically diverse communities, experience several public health challenges including the lack of access to affordable, healthy food options. Project New Village’s Good Food District, a model for transformation, aims to elevate and integrate urban agriculture as a key component of community revitalization. Its People’s Produce Mobile Farmers Market and the Mt. Hope Community Garden bring fresh local produce to community members.
The Village will embody the nonprofit’s vision to use food, arts, and culture as means for wealth building and place making. The local fresh food marketplace will also include a site for healthy prepared food vendors. Its food hub will offer culinary classes, feature a community gathering space, and maintain its beloved community garden space.
SVP is honored to be a part of Project New Village’s journey as it prepares for this next phase of growth, expansion, and the deepening of its important work.