Each dollar does more than a dollar's work.
How SFLuv Works
In most neighborhoods, donations, volunteer energy, and local businesses operate separately: donations fund projects, volunteers give their time, and merchants work on their own to attract customers. SFLuv connects them using SFLUV, a local currency backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars, so that a single donation improves the neighborhood and then adds to it again as revenue for the businesses in it.
Amplification
- The program dollar$59,561 in program expense
- What it adds on the way out$24,906 paid out in SFLUV
Each dollar does more than a dollar's work.
- 1
Supporters donate
Supporters donate funds to SFLuv, and we convert those dollars into SFLUV, which is backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars. On top of that, every SFLUV transaction is recorded publicly, so donors can see exactly where their money went.
- 2First impact
Neighbors improve the neighborhood
SFLUV is then distributed to the people doing the work. Volunteers at our cleanups, tree plantings, and other community events receive it as a thank you for their time, and Improvers (neighborhood residents we pay for skilled or ongoing work) receive part of their pay in SFLUV. This is the first impact: the neighborhood itself is improved.
- 3Second impact
SFLUV is spent at local merchants
Volunteers and Improvers then spend their SFLUV at our partner small businesses, which accept it on their phones in seconds. This is the second impact: the same dollar that improved the block becomes revenue for a local business, and often brings it a new customer. At SFOrganiCA, a Tenderloin grocery and deli, an estimated 90 percent of SFLUV spending came from volunteers who had never shopped there before.
- 4
Merchants spend it or cash it out
Merchants can spend the SFLUV they receive at other participating businesses, which adds to the local total once more, or convert it back into U.S. dollars. Since every SFLUV is backed by a real dollar, a merchant never has to hold onto it longer than they want to.
How far a dollar goes
Consider a $100 donation to a neighborhood cleanup. In a traditional model, that $100 might pay for supplies and a crew, and once it is spent, its job is done. With SFLUV, the $100 goes to the volunteers and Improvers who do the cleanup, and they then spend it at a local grocery or cafe, so the same $100 is counted twice: once as a cleaner block, and once as revenue for a neighborhood business.
We measure this directly. In our first year each dollar of program spending produced about $1.43 of combined neighborhood and local business impact — an amplification factor of 1.43x. It is below our target of 2x because not all of our program spending is distributed as SFLUV yet, which is the part we are still growing.
Our first year, 2025–2026
- amplification factor
- 1.43x
- amplification factor
- SFLUV spent at local merchants
- $16,560
- SFLUV spent at local merchants
- merchant partners
- 8
- merchant partners
- volunteer hours
- 1,038
- volunteer hours