Our Team

►The Pro Bono Pirates

►Kate Effland, Development Manager, New York

►Elizabeth Schwan-Rosenwald, Executive Director, Chicago

►Allison Huang, Program Fellow, Chicago

What would make significantly more nonprofit employees take advantage of quality pro bono resources?

► Pro Bono Pirates

► For every dollar and grant raised by an organization, there is a staff member carefully cultivating, managing, and overseeing how the money is used.

► The Pro Bono Pirate has one job: find the pro bono treasure, seduce the target, and seize the pro bono resource for capacity-building.

► Pro Bono Pirates – whether full time staff or volunteers – are lured to a life on the pro bono sea by the promise of finding and using new resources that build strong organizations

What’s your high-level plan for successfully making this happen?

1. Identify corporate and nonprofit professionals interested in piracy. Key characteristics and recruitment tactics include:

► Dissatisfaction with the status quo, eagerness to find new treasures, interest in new areas of exploration and ideas, and a willingness to do the unusual

► Recruitment areas could include AFP chapters, BoardSource, MPA/MBA programs, nonprofit administration masters programs, and corporate loaned executive programs

► Pro bono pirates can/will be in-house staff, loaned executives, volunteers, board members or new hires

2. Taproot developed training in sourcing and managing pro bono delivered by pro bono experts to a manifest of pirate recruits

3. Ongoing online coaching from pro bono experts delivered via Google HelpOuts and/or the online marketplace

4. Establish a swash-buckling pro bono pirate campfire to share learnings, challenges and opportunities, leveraging the Global Pro Bono Summit or other existing pro bono gatherings such as the Conference on Volunteering

How the success of this idea be measured?

► Number of Pro Bono Pirates trained

► 500 Pro Bono Pirates trained in year one

► 15,000 Pro Bono Pirates trained in year two

► Number of organizations with Pro Bono Pirates

► 100 organizations in New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, San Francisco and Dallas have a pro bono pirate in year one. 5,000 pro bono pirates

► 1% of the 1.5 million nonprofits nationwide house a pro bono pirate in year two

► Each Pro Bono Pirate will complete a survey following training and 3 months into an initial placement

► Number of Pro Bono project requests

► LinkedIn

► 200 project requests in year one

► 5,000 project request in year two

► Intermediaries

► Taproot Foundation online marketplace

► 200 project request in year one

► 5,000 project requests in year two

How do you envision this idea getting to a very large scale when implemented?

►Pro Bono Pirate University

►Pro Bono Resource Center via online marketplace or Foundation Center

►Program transition to external partner invested in strengthening the nonprofit sector, examples could include: Association of Fundraising Professionals, LinkedIn, Kaplan, and/or University of Phoenix

►National recognized certification of Pro Bono Piracy