Our project is pursuing the pilot credit “Social equity within the community”, using option 2 - Partner with Existing Community Service.
There is not much information available for this specific pilot credit on the forum, so for the required post we will describe our experience with collecting the supporting information and filling in the required “Option 2 Documentation Template”.
The project is an expansion of the existing baseball spring training facility. The community service partner organization (Foundation) was always a big part of the stadium and collected majority of donations during the spring training events.
Step 1 Table: The table format was very helpful to identify the major population groups involved in the construction and use of the facility. Basic demographic information is not really that basic, and we had to really shorten the description to fit into the table or had to attach the supporting documentation.
Step 2: The three strategies that the project focused on at the beginning were improvement of space, support for on-going programming and events, and financial contribution. Due to COVID-19, all games and other events carried out at the stadium had been cancelled or postponed indefinitely. But as the stadium closed and the spring training got cancelled, the Foundation shifted their focus more on provision of services. I feel that the Pilot Credit requirements are broad and cover many strategies that can be implemented even when the physical spaces and large in-person events are not possible.
Our supporting documentation includes: “Option 2 Documentation Template”, letter from the Foundation, financial contributions information, expanded facility marketing materials, project zip Code demographics report, description of the Foundation initiatives, list of supported charities.
We are planning to submit for review in few weeks. Will post an update if there are any comments, or if additional information is required.
Reshadee Weerasooriya
Sustainability/LEED Executiveco-energi (Pvt) Ltd.
7 thumbs up
January 28, 2022 - 3:48 am
Thank you for sharing your experience. We also have used option 2: Partner with Existing Community Service and Advocacy Organizations for a project in Sri Lanka. With Covid 19 situation we focussed on aligning the community service project with local hospital at the close proximity to the project building to provide Covid 19 related emergency medical supplies.
We used the documentation template you mentioned. Also the project's operational team had prepared a project report and the partner organization provided their organization profile which we submitted along with the collaboration contract as additional documentation.
Michelle Rosenberger
PartnerArchEcology
522 thumbs up
March 30, 2022 - 6:43 pm
Agreed there is not much guidance on how to document this credit. My project is a commercial interiors daycare project which serves low income community stakeholders. They are entirely mission driven and partnered for their construction project with a children's clinic. They occupy the same building and share some spaces and some programs. Ironically, because they are themselves a social equity organization with extensive partnerships throughout the community, they struggled to understand how to fill out the Option 2 Template and how to narrow things down to a point that made sense in terms of effort. I think this is a great pilot, but I wonder if there should literally be an option for social equity based service organizations to simply describe themselves and what they do.