Taproot Celebrates 1000 Projects

This month Taproot announced an exciting milestone- the completion of our 1000th Service Grant! Consider this post an interactive thank you card from all of us at Taproot Foundation!

Please take a moment to reflect on all that we have accomplished together. Join us in celebrating by posting your most memorable Taproot moment, sharing what pro bono service means to you, or thanking your fellow members of the Taproot Foundation family! You have proven that we can accomplish more by working together and sharing our talents and passions across sectors. Thank you!

Taproot Program Manager Anne Diaz shares what this milestone means to her:

As a Program Manager at Taproot Foundation, I have the great honor and privilege of overseeing our Service Grant projects from start to finish. A fellow Program Manager put it well when she recently remarked to me,

“the emotional rewards at this job are amazing. We spend a lot of time at our desks, but we somehow get to witness and facilitate great change at the same time.”

Over the course of the 100 projects I’ve managed, I have witnessed amazing results. I have seen nonprofits whose work is completely transformed for the better by stellar deliverables; pro bono consultants who, inspired by their clients, change their careers by switching sectors (some even joining their client’s staff full time!); and nonprofit board members who decide to become pro bono consultants after they witness the professionalism of the Taproot teams working for their organization.

The road to 1000 projects hasn’t always been smooth. Each one of our projects demands the utmost dedication and expertise from our pro bono consultants as well as professionalism and candor from our clients. There have been moments of frustration, disappointment, confusion, and hilarity. Yet these moments make the final deliverables and the overall experience that much sweeter for everyone involved.

When chosen to write this post in celebration of our 1000th project milestone, I tried to think of one moment that would encapsulate the deep gratitude I feel around each and every project we support – projects that expose the absolute best of the corporate and nonprofit worlds.

I thought about what to write as I ate lunch with a three-time Account Director who told me;

“Anne, I will always be an Account Director for Taproot. This is work just too meaningful to stop.”

I kept thinking as I brainstormed with a pro bono consultant who had offered to help Taproot create different pro bono service options. I continued thinking as I spoke to representatives from a nonprofit and heard their deep appreciation for their team and the lessons they had learned about their infrastructure through creating a new logo.

What I realized is that this milestone can’t be summed up in one moment. This milestone is the culmination of thousands of little “aha!” moments collectively proving that pro bono can be high quality, reliable, and accessible. Perhaps one of our clients summed it up best, in an email to me this morning;

“This work has been an exciting and stimulating adventure!!!”

An adventure it is. Here’s to the next 1000!

Be a part of Taproot’s next 1000 pro bono deliverables by joining our community of nonprofits and skilled volunteers.