this month's
CONTRIBUTORS
JUDY FARAH Judy is a veteran journalist and writ-
“Shooting for Success” er who has worked in the New York,
pg. 38
St. HOPE Public Schools is one of our four entities and while
we receive state education funding we pay the Sacramento City
Unified School District nearly $1 million each year for our fa-
cilities, rent and operations because we are a charter-school
network. This significantly cuts into our per pupil funding, our
ability to cover costs and provide the additional support services
our students deserve. In the past, we have had to fundraise to help
close this gap. However, by leveraging the power of our business
enterprises, we have been able to generate revenue that can offset
these costs and find economies of scale, decreasing overall over-
head and providing more resources for our schools.
St. HOPE isn’t the only nonprofit with a self-sustaining model;
Goodwill and PRIDE Industries are other examples of nonprofits
doing good work in our community that are not solely dependent
on philanthropic contributions to sustain their operations.
This dual-track approach that incorporates revenue genera-
tion into an organization’s mission is a model other community
development nonprofits should consider. Nonprofits can be most
effective when, instead of focusing on fundraising to power
their vision and maintain their operations, they can direct phil-
anthropic contributions to support new capital projects and
their endowment.
There are many pieces to the puzzle to fully implement a
community-wide vision for a safer and stronger Oak Park. While
there has been enormous progress over the last 30 years, there
still is work to be done. There are pressing issues regarding home-
lessness, housing affordability and unemployment, all of which
affect quality of life for residents and prospects for economic
development. We hope other nonprofits will take a holistic look
at opportunities to strengthen communities. An important first
step is to look at revitalization through both an economic de-
velopment and education lens. Then there should be concerted
efforts to put into place a self-sustaining business model that en-
sures a singular focus on community betterment is not distracted
by fundraising efforts.
Jake Mossawir is president and CEO of St. HOPE. Previously, he was
the founding executive director of City Year Sacramento and his board
service includes the Sacramento Asian Chamber of Commerce, College
Track and the American Leadership Forum. He graduated from Lead-
ership Sacramento, Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program and is an
American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow. Jake received his B.A. from
UC Davis and his MBA from Drexel University.
Los Angeles and Sacramento mar-
kets. She has been a news director/
senior editor of KFBK radio, a report-
er/editor for The Associated Press in
Los Angeles and a contributor to The
Huffington Post. “I’ve covered every-
thing from presidents to serial killers
and the Olympics to the Oscars,”
she says. “I see stories everywhere
and love writing about them.” Judy
has won several Edward R. Mur-
row awards, including one for Best
Writing, and has been honored with
journalism fellowships to Europe and
Asia. Read more of Judy’s work at
www.judyfarah.com and find her on
Twitter @newsbabe1530.
RUSSELL NICHOLS Russell has been a long-time con-
“Slow Progress for Fast tributor to Comstock’s and is leading
Speeds"
our coverage of the roll-out of 5G in
pg. 44
Sacramento, which includes a story
in this month’s magazine. “We live
in an age of hype, so I think ana-
lysts play a crucial role in helping
parse fact from fiction,” he says of
his story. Russell also writes Com-
stock’s’ monthly “Seed Round: Meet
the Founder” and “Startup of the
Month” columns. His work has ap-
peared in the Wall Street Journal, the
Boston Globe, Governing Magazine
and Government Technology. He is
traveling the world with his wife.
KEN JAMES Ken is a 24-year veteran photo-
“Fit for a Spin” journalist who has contributed to
pg. 96
Comstock’s since 2006. He started
his career with the Fairfax Newspa-
per Group in Sydney, Australia. Since
relocating to California in 2002, Ken
has contributed to many newspa-
pers and news services, including
Bloomberg News, United Press Inter-
national, The New York Times and The
San Francisco Examiner. In 2005, Ken
spent six months covering the Iraq
war and later documented the after-
math of Hurricane Katrina. Ken has
actively covered state politics and
gubernatorial elections. For more,
visit www.kjamesimages.com.
June
June
2019
2019
| comstocksmag.com
| comstocksmag.com
17