San Francisco’s Tenderloin district is a study in paradoxes: it is a neighborhood where upscale restaurants, theaters, and hotels share the streets with the homeless, the poor, and those struggling with substance abuse. It is in this context of contradictions that the Glide Foundation has made its home since 1929.

For more than 40 years Glide has opened its doors to the city’s most vulnerable and disenfranchised residents, offering free meals, health services, child care and after-school programs, job training and assistance, two weekly spiritual celebrations, and access to other community resources. Koret has awarded more than $1.5 million in grants to Glide since 1981 to support Glide’s mission. In recent years, Koret support has helped Glide to plan, design, and implement a leadership transition, and to measure the impact of its services.

When CEO Willa Seldon took the helm of the foundation in May 2007, succeeding founders and longtime community leaders Reverend Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, she knew she wanted to find new ways to analyze and publicize Glide’s impact in the community. With a grant from Koret, Seldon and the organization embarked on a comprehensive project to measure and articulate Glide’s impact, build the long-term capacity of the organization to evaluate itself, and enhance its ability to sustain itself financially. Continued on page 5