Capacity Building and Future Sustainability

The purpose of this project is to have our infrastructure catch up with the rest of our projects. We have reached our capacity at current, having outgrown our space and needs for the populations that we serve. We have read and listened and we are understanding more that there is an inherent learning and unlearning of coping skills that is done in the world of addiction and as adults we have increasingly less space to do this learning safely. The Union strives to adequately offer a balance of patience and instruction, space and accountability for people who use drugs to not just simply remove drugs from the equation, but to build a community that embraces the complicated and intersecting issues that lead to or result from addiction. We are in need of a Grants Manager to assist us in organizing and developing more sustainable funding. We are moving locations this very month, and our rent is triple what we pay now. We can afford this at the moment, but as you can guess it has stretched our budget to be more tight and delicate. We are also asking for assistance with a Web Designer in order to share what we are doing with more organizations like our own.

Our project is for a small capacity-level boost to make the work more organized, within which we can make the impact that we are already having more powerful and the arguments we are making more compelling. With the extra help we can move closer to our goal of creating a country free of stigma towards people who cope with life through substances, creating a space where people can feel safe and stable enough to begin to unpack the trauma that brought them to where they are in the first place, and creating a small world that will welcome those people to heal the way they need and a hand to walk back out of the spiral they feel they've been descending down. If successful, we would like to be a model for other programs to begin working with their participants in a more grounded, trauma-informed, manner.

Vision

Better Together

The Big Idea is to become a space for people who have none. Short and simple. Our people have been reduced to stereotypes and typecasts, and when given the room to prove that they are more, they will every time. The big vision is to inspire everyone to find the balance because although great ideas sometimes come from one mind, as a society we will grow stronger and more sustainably together.

San Francisco Drug Users' Union

Capacity Building and Future Sustainability

Model and Strategy

Impact

Leadership

Miss Ian Callaghan