WILDFLOWERS INSTITUTE
1144 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA 941334212 www.wildflowers.org

---

Organizations Filed Purposes: The Institutes major accomplishments for 2019 were: (1) to sponsor the Hidden Gems II Award program for artists residing in the Tenderloin, San Francisco; (2) to hold a ceremony involving three hundred community members to celebrate sixty award winners; and (3) to develop a tool to advise policy makers and funders on how to strengthen the functioning of this neighborhood.

Wildflowers Institute is a culture lab dedicated to revealing a social order that already works in diverse communities and to harnessing this energy from one generation to another.

In 2019, the Institute invited resident artists to submit artwork for its Hidden Gems II Awards program that told a story about the Tenderloin in San Francisco. We offered one thousand dollars to individuals selected to receive an award. Four individuals with extensive experience in their community served on a panel to select the Hidden Gems II Award winners: a muralist, a poet, a community leader, and a social service provider. They reviewed the artworks and narratives and decided on the artists to receive an award. Following this selection process, the Institute staff conducted a three-month in-depth analysis of sixty award winners artworks and narratives. The staff also conducted interviews with fifteen resident artists to confirm the findings from their analysis. What emerged from the stack of stories was an implicit code of conduct describing how people of diverse backgrounds coexist together. The artists revealed four different villages in this neighborhoodthe Arabic, Latino, LGBTQ, and Southeast Asianas well as a community of Blacks, Chinese, and Filipinos. This code, which brings all of these different groups together, is the underlying premise of a safe and caring community. We learned that residents in the Tenderloin naturally come together to care for and protect one another, across cultures, religions, languages, and beliefs. They develop a code of conduct that allows this crossing of borders while they maintain continuity with their past. We believe this weaving of a diverse neighborhoods social fabric is at the crux of community sustainability in contemporary times. On August 16, 2019, Wildflowers held a ceremony in the Tenderloin attended by some three hundred community residents where we announced sixty Hidden Gems II Award winners and celebrated their narratives of a neighborhood. In partnership with the Aspen Institute, the institute organized a weekend Aspen Seminar for fifty local artists, funders, and business and nonprofit leaders. The seminar focused on the code of conduct in the Tenderloin.The Institute also developed a tool to advise policy makers and funders on how to strengthen the functioning of the Tenderloin. The common public perception of the Tenderloin is that it is gritty, hopeless, and the last stop in life. But the artworks and narratives made visible insights from the artists personal experience. Through their artworks, the artists express what it takes to form a nurturing social order that supports identity formation and authenticity. To turn this finding into a tool, the Institute decided to curate the artworks and narratives and publish three hundred copies of a book, Stories of the Tenderloin, for the following three audiences. First, we believe that the stories here will help those inside the community recognize and celebrate hidden creative talent and will reinforce this code. Second, we hope that those outside the Tenderloin with the capacity and desire to preserve its dynamism and role as a refuge will help the community heal and grow. And, finally, we want to make those with the power to disrupt these safe havens aware of what their actions could put at risk. Residents, outsiders with the mind and heart to support healing and resiliency, and leaders with the power to disrupt are the ones who either improve or weaken the conditions for this neighborhood to function effectively as a complex adaptive system.

---

---

Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202001979349307975_public.xml