Creative Currency | American Express, San Francisco Mayor's Office of Innovation & Gray Area

Challenge

American Express, seeking to innovate financial services around exchange, partnered with the San Francisco Mayor's Office, Impact Hub, and Gray Area to reimagine systems of exchange in the Tenderloin district.

Approach

The initiative had three phases: Outreach, Prototype, and Launch. Lauren served as Community Outreach and Research Lead, responsible for:

• Building relationships with local organizations
• Designing and executing research methodology
• Conducting 20+ long-form video interviews with stakeholders
• Collecting 155+ community surveys
• Analyzing data using grounded methods, open coding, affinity diagrams, actors mapping, and system mapping
• Producing the introductory video and Community Brief

Result

Featured in The New York Times, the program combined community outreach, rapid prototyping, and iterative deployment. The Community Brief directly informed hackathon teams at the Collaboration Weekend.

Solutions launched included:

• Bridge -- shelter bed-finding tool
• RefreshSF -- mobile washing station
• Your SqFt -- platform connecting entrepreneurs with idle retail spaces

Testimonial

Jon Axtell (Impact Hub) described the output as "unparalleled work that has been needed for decades," noting Lauren is "completely professional and committed to excellence."