Public Architecture Works for Good and Does Good Work
1% program helps nonprofits find design resources

by Layla Bellows

Summary: San Francisco-based nonprofit Public Architecture reaches its goals to bring high-quality design services to service agencies through a mix of high-profile design initiatives, grants, and successful relationships.

When most companies think about building a new office, its external design is as high on the wish list as any function inside. When a nonprofit needs a new place to practice its good works, however, tighter-than-tight budgets can keep stellar design off the priority list.

Enter Public Architecture, the San Francisco nonprofit dedicated to helping other nonprofits find design resources. Their 1% program, which encourages architects to set aside 1 percent of their time for pro bono service, has about 500 firms participating, and more than 200 nonprofits are using the service to find design solutions for their organization’s workspace needs.

The 1% program is Public Architecture’s passion, but the company—and its success—is also driven by high-profile, innovative design initiatives such as ScrapHouse, a 2005 demonstration home created entirely from salvaged materials, that tend to get highlighted in national media, which in turn gets word about the organization out to folks outside the industry.

Design initiatives
Trish Millines Dziko is the cofounder and executive director of the Technology Access Foundation (TAF), a Seattle nonprofit dedicated to providing underserved minority children with education in science, technology, engineering, and math. When the organization realized it needed to move into a bigger space and began discussing ideas with their partners in the local parks department, ScrapHouse became part of the conversation. Dziko liked the concept behind the structure and decided to meet with Public Architecture.

“They started talking about the whole concept of building with reused materials in mind,” she says. “We wanted a green building, but we weren’t even thinking about salvaged materials.”

Public Architecture was brought on board to consult, and Seattle architecture firm Miller Hull came on as local partners and architect of record under the 1% program. The result of these partnerships is the Technology Access Foundation Community Learning Space, a three-story building that will use 10 to 15 percent salvaged materials in construction. TAF is currently in the midst of a $15 million capital campaign to raise the funds needed to build it. Although Dziko says fundraising “has been a bear,” the building’s use of innovative materials and design solutions such as filtering pollutants out of runoff water from the parking lot offer opportunities for teaching students.

John Cary, Assoc. AIA, executive director of Public Architecture, estimates design initiatives such as these bring in about 40 percent of the nonprofit’s revenue. The other 60 percent comes from foundations, grants, and donations.

Unusual funding
Thinking outside the box is what has put Public Architecture’s projects on the national radar. Thinking equally innovatively about funding opportunities has afforded them income from unexpected groups. Very early on, for instance, the people at Public Architecture were introduced to the National Endowment for the Arts through an AIA event. Cary points out that the federal agency’s grants sound like they would be among the most difficult funding to receive.

“But without any real funding record—or program record—we managed to secure a grant from them,” he says, “and we’ve subsequently secured six consecutive grants from the NEA. It’s almost certainly unprecedented.”

Some could call it a case of good luck, but it’s actually the result of hard efforts to demonstrate that Public Architecture’s work is integral to a grant program’s goals. One example is an approximately $100,000 research grant from the U.S. Green Building Council, which Cary says is very unusual for a nonprofit to receive.

“We successfully made the case to them that social sustainability is as critical to overall sustainability as an environmental effort,” he says, “and that without the culture that values environmental sustainability, it’s going to be short-lived.”

Building a network
Although the financial support that grants and design projects bring in keep the company going financially throughout the year, the network of people and organizations Public Architecture has developed is what keeps the spirit of the company thriving.

“Our number one growth tool, marketing tool, source of fulfillment—literally everything—comes down to the relationships that we have,” Cary says. “Our program grows through word of mouth well over any marketing effort that we’ve made. People trust us, and people believe in us, and that makes the difference.”

One of their biggest believers is Aaron Hurst, whose Taproot Foundation is like an older sibling to Public Architecture. Hurst began Taproot in 2001 to create a marketplace for pro bono services for nonprofits. Whether a nonprofit needs help with human resources, marketing, or technology, Taproot could be there to help them find someone offering those services pro bono and set up a plan to make sure a specific project need was carried out.

After he came across Public Architecture’s 1% program, he brought that service into his pro bono fold with the deeply held belief that the people who need the social services provided by nonprofits also need to get these services in a healthy environment.

“Spas are not designed to be warehouses,” he says, “they’re designed to be places that help you relax and get the most out of that treatment. The same thing should be true of social work and education and medicine—part of the treatment should be the design.”

Currently, more than 50 percent of the 1% program’s nonprofit referrals come through Taproot. Hurst also helped Public Architecture set up more efficient systems and methods for nonprofits and architecture firms to find each other and assiduously promotes 1% to about 80 foundations he works with around the country.

It all feeds back into the success of Public Architecture’s 1% effort, which in turn helps with securing grants and promoting phenomenal design across a spectrum of fields that might not have previously had access to it.