Other Community Resources

If you would like to recommend other resources to be included on this webpage, please contact info@thrivealliance.org.

General Information
Recycling
Helping Our Schools
Free Legal Advice

General Information about San Mateo County:

Map of Cities in San Mateo County, including links to city websites.

QuickStats is a service of the US Census Bureau. Through QuickStats, you can access demographic information from the US Census Bureau by State and County, as well as cities/towns with populations of more than 25,000 people.

Statistical Information About San Mateo County is available from the Federal Government through FedStats, which provides access to official statistics collected and published by more than 100 Federal agencies. Quarterly housing/income statistics are also available from The San Mateo County Human Services Agency.

The Community Information Program (CIP) of the Peninsula Library System provides services including mapping, resource guides, mailing labels, custom searches, and demographic data. One of their most popular publications is the Directory of Human Services for San Mateo County, which lists about 600 agencies and programs serving San Mateo County. CIP also offers a wonderful list of "Community Resources," including an Interactive Map of Cities and Towns in San Mateo County, List of Core Service Centers, Information on Interagency Meetings, A compilation of community assessments from Healthy Communities San Mateo County, and links to favorite data sources.

The Community Wish List includes requests from 23 nonprofit organizations (many of whom are Thrive members!) for everything from office furniture and DVDs to shampoos and conditioners. The wish list is a project of Burlingame Vice Mayor Terry Nagel, and she hopes to expand it to include more groups from around the county in the future. A copy of the wish list may be downloaded from Terry Nagel's website at http://www.terrynagel.com.

Recycling, Reuse, & Green Office Resources

ReCompute – San Mateo County's First Free Electronics Recycling & Refurbishing Program

Residents and businesses can drop off computers and televisions, working or not, at any Goodwill donation center in San Mateo, San Francisco or Marin counties. The used electronics are taken to a refurbishing hub located at the San Mateo County Human Services Agency Vocational Rehabilitation Services (VRS) facility where VRS clients, utilizing vocational job training, are employed to refurbish the recycled electronics. This partnership offers people with employment barriers and disabilities an opportunity to learn marketable skills while promoting electronics recycling. For more information on VRS, visit http://www.smchsavrs.org/. For information on Goodwill Industries or to find out where you can drop off a computer, visit http://www.goodwill.org/.

RecycleWorks

A program of San Mateo County, RecycleWorks offers information, special events, and workshops to highlight local environmental resources, including ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials. The sustainability section of the RecycleWorks website addresses fundamental changes to the way energy, housing, product design, environmental policy and business is being thought about. Sustainable solutions are not easy and require collaboration among many sectors of the economy. The RecycleWorks website strives to be a resource to move sustainability forward in San Mateo County.

RecycleWorks has just updated its publication: "ReUse Guide: Where to Donate Unwanted Items." It tells renters and homeowners how to get rid of unwanted household items in an environmentally responsible way. Click here to download the guide as a PDF file.

For those who are not connected to the web, RecycleWorks also maintains a hotline at 1-888-442-2666.

Helping Our Schools

DonorsChoose

DonorsChoose.org was pioneered by teachers at a Bronx public high school in the spring of 2000. Charles Best, then a social studies teacher, saw first-hand the scarcity of materials in our public school classrooms and the profound impact of this scarcity on kids' education. Looking for a way to address this problem, he sensed an untapped potential in people who were frustrated by their lack of influence over the use of their charitable donations. DonorsChoose.org, a website connecting classrooms in need with individuals who want to help, was born.

DonorsChoose.org has attracted contributors from all walks of life through an approach called Citizen Philanthropy. No matter their contribution size, all donors are treated to a level of service normally reserved for established philanthropists.

Free Legal Advice from Stanford Law School

The Organizations and Transactions Clinic of Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School provides free corporate legal services to Northern California nonprofits and foundations. We work on corporate governance, contracts, collaborations and communications. Our students, under the supervision of experienced attorneys, perform targeted legal reviews and provide advice about governance and disclosure practices; prepare bylaws, conflict-of-interest and other board policies, committee charters, director orientation materials, board self-assessment tools and similar documents; plan transactions, draft contracts, MOUs and other operating agreements and prepare related workplans; and draft template document and checklist, summary and other tools for management use. We focus on providing practical and context-aware support to senior leaders. Go to http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/clinics/transactions/ for more information.