Taproot Foundation

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Model & Strategy

Taproot Foundation engages the nation’s business professionals in pro bono services to support nonprofit enterprises in achieving urgent social change. Impacting critical issues like the environment, health, and education requires more than vision and passion. To succeed, social enterprises also require access to marketing, design, technology, management, and strategic planning resources. Taproot offers three core programs to increase nonprofits’ effectiveness through access to pro bono professional services.

The Services Grant Program directly matches volunteer experts from an array of fields with projects in need of support. The Advisory Services Program supports organizations to internally develop their own customized, high-impact pro bono outreach programs. The Advocacy Program joins leading foundations, universities, companies, coalitions and associations in collaboration to envision and design broader initiatives and movements built around donated services to effect social change.

Taproot demonstrates that pro bono service can be a reliable, high quality, cost-effective, and scalable resource for nonprofits, enlisting top talent from the marketing, tech, human resources, design and consulting fields to create meaningful impact.

At a Glance
Founded: 2001
By: Aaron Hurst
Civic Engagement
Location of work: Domestic, Northeast, West Coast, Midwest
https://www.taprootfoundation.org/
Taproot Foundation
1700 Broadway
Suite 300
Oakland, CA 94612
Make it matter
Meet Aaron Hurst

Aaron Hurst is the founder of the Taproot Foundation and is a creative force behind the conception of the national Billion + Change initiative and the Service Enterprise model. He is a featured blogger for the Huffington Post and Stanford Social Innovation Review. Aaron began his career as a social innovator at the University of Michigan, where he designed and led an educational program for local correctional facilities, subsequently becoming the first student to receive the Michigan Campus Compact Award. Upon graduating, he worked in inner-city education in Chicago before landing in Silicon Valley as an early employee at two venture-backed social venture companies. Aaron is a recipient of the Ashoka Foundation fellowship and has also been formally recognized as a leading social innovator by the Aspen Institute, Social Venture Network, Fast Company, Commonwealth Club, the Manhattan Institute, the State of California, and the Alliance for Nonprofit Management.

Liz Hamburg became President and CEO in 2014. She has over 20 years of experience starting up and growing innovative businesses both in the U.S. and international markets.

IMPACT

Taproot’s vision is for all organizations with promising solutions to be equipped to successfully take on urgent social challenges.

 

 

Taproot has engaged 4,600 social change organizations and almost 17,000 skilled volunteers, and has delivered $161m in pro bono value.

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