GiveBetter x SF

Code Tenderloin

Conditional whole-organization value of a $100,000 unrestricted gift

Research time: ~17 min on GPT-5.6 Sol Medium
  • Research — organization and evidence review.
  • Modeling — cost-effectiveness analysis.
  • Historical estimate for research done before time tracking.

Published: September 8, 2026.

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Summary

What do they do? Code Tenderloin provides community-based support in San Francisco, including employment, youth and reentry services. Its ambassador work includes peer contact and help during emergencies. The health estimate focuses on additional peer overdose response while retaining the cost of other activities. More

We include Code Tenderloin among our top-ten research candidates because of its:

  • Local peer relationships that may reach people conventional services miss.
  • A disclosed ambassador wage that gives a concrete starting point for estimating delivery costs.
  • A potentially important role in timely overdose response, alongside broader community support.

Our main reservations about Code Tenderloin are:

  • The complete worker-hour cost, contact intensity and allocation of new funding are assumptions.
  • Additional high-risk reach and the change in emergency outcomes have not been measured.
  • Current accounts, public funding and historical sponsor arrangements need reconciliation before estimating extra capacity.

What do you get for your dollar?

GiveBetter sees a potentially valuable mechanism in having a trusted person nearby who can recognize and respond to an overdose. An advertised ambassador wage of about $27 an hour anchors our assumed $60 complete worker-hour cost. Six worker-hours per offered person-year give an assumed $360 delivery package; after 50% funding additionality, branch spending is about $720 per additional package, before allocating general organizational costs. Source

The model asks whether those contacts close a rescue gap beyond existing services. It assumes peers close 10% of the remaining gap with 90% effectiveness, reducing modeled overdose hazard by 9%. It values extra survival once over a finite ten-year horizon rather than awarding a new lifetime for each reported reversal.

With an assumed 25% of additional support allocated to peer response, the central estimate is about $1.81 million per 10 Bay Area QALYs. Most of the pathway—from the loaded wage to additional coverage and mortality benefit—remains a judgment to test, not a current service price or measured effect. More

What information has Code Tenderloin shared about its program?

Official program information, wage disclosure and a public health directory establish current service activity. The missing evidence includes worker-hour logs linked to distinct people reached, emergency responses, sustained access and a current marginal budget. Historical sponsor accounts cannot substitute for the independent organization's finances. More

What is GiveBetter’s qualitative assessment of Code Tenderloin?

Trusted relationships, employment and reentry support can have value beyond the health pathways quantified here. The emergency-response mechanism deserves attention, but we would not infer cost-effectiveness from contact or reversal counts alone. Current funding and patient overlap with other providers are important next checks. More

1. What do they do?

Code Tenderloin provides job readiness, training, youth and reentry support, casework, community events and outreach. The current ambassador page identifies drug-related emergency and recovery support; a September 1, 2026 DPH directory corroborates active barrier-removal services. This report quantifies only a prospective peer-response component of a general gift.

Allocate the entire gift

All $100,000 remains in the cost numerator, including other programs and institutional overhead.

Fund additional peer contact

Central $60 per worker-hour and six hours per unique offered person-year include repeated and unsuccessful contacts. These are complete direct-delivery judgments, not a priced offer.

Change response beyond existing care

Only a remaining gap in timely rescue counts. SFAF, SFCHC, DPH and other peers are part of the baseline and cannot also claim the same patient-time.

Count finite additional survival

Peer response changes fatal OD hazard for one service year. Later survivors face the same recurrent-overdose and competing mortality hazards as the comparison group.

Scope of this review. No historical enrollment, referral, training credential or reported reversal is treated as a new life saved. Other clinical, employment, housing, art and policy impacts remain unquantified.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

Code Tenderloin services and current recipient

Current official provider, IRS and September 2026 DPH disclosures. Standalone EIN and active barrier-removal/ambassador services supported.

Our assessment. Does not identify how many otherwise-fatal overdoses a general gift would prevent.

Modeled fentanyl/heroin users

Coffin, Maya and Kahn 2022 decision model. Timely naloxone coverage reduces modeled fatal overdose risk; faster fentanyl progression constrains response.

Our assessment. Supports mechanism, not Code's actual residual access gap or response effect.

ED-treated nonfatal opioid overdose survivors

Weiner et al. 2020 Massachusetts retrospective survivor cohort. 5.5% died within one year, with substantial early mortality.

Our assessment. Requires recurrent/competing mortality treatment; not a contemporary SF parameter estimate.

Historical sponsored project and planned public services

FY2024 sponsor Form 990 and June 2025 CHOPP request. $4.77M historical Code program expenses; material prospective public funding described.

Our assessment. Not current standalone audited finances. Mixed CHOPP service units cannot become marginal cost per person.

3. Qualitative assessment

Code Tenderloin's current ambassadors and Night Navigators assist drug-related emergencies and recovery access. Timely overdose response has a credible causal mechanism.

Key reservations

  • No current complete independent budget or verified $100,000 marginal peer-response offer.
  • Ordinary gift allocation and complete direct-delivery package are constructed judgments.
  • Unique high-risk reach and sustained incremental response over a year are unmeasured.
  • Legacy sponsor contract transfer is not assumed; current public and partner services limit additionality.
  • Finite constant-risk health model does not fit recovery transitions or age-specific survival.

Benefits not included in our estimate

  • Medication-treatment enrollments and other clinical benefits
  • Employment, education and training
  • Housing, reentry and family outcomes
  • Other overdose programs' same recipient-time
  • Economic welfare and policy effects

4. What do you get for your dollar?

One year of incremental response; finite additional alive-time

The central cohort is selected three months after the gift. We integrate the difference between survival curves for ten care-relative years, discounting at 3%. No additional response benefit is assumed after year one, and no full lifetime is repeatedly assigned to rescues of the same person.

A better life is our comparison unit of 10 additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), potentially spread across people. These are uncertain estimates, not measured returns or verified donation offers.

How we calculate the estimate

Whole-gift peer-response bridge: Offers = gift × peer allocation / [(hourly wage × payroll loading + direct nonwage delivery) × worker-hours per offered year]. Q = offers × financial additionality × (finite discounted survival difference × utility − shared harm) − independent harm.
Central: 69.44 offered packages, 34.72 additional packages, 0.11676 extra people alive at service-year end, 0.564257 US QALYs and 0.507832 SF QALYs.

Model inputs and assumptions
Peer-response allocation
25% (range: 10–50% joint scenarios). Marginal allocation is not inferred from the sponsor's historical expense mix; remaining portfolio and overhead cost stays. Analyst judgment.
Direct worker-hour cash / hours per offered person-year
$60 / 6 hours = $360 (range: $45–$90 / 3–12 hours). Official ambassador wage is about $27/hour; payroll loading and direct logistics/supervision are judgments. Count two workers as two worker-hours; include failed and repeated contacts. Provider wage anchor plus cost judgments.
Financial additionality
50% (range: 0–75%). Addresses funding replacement, separate from actual no-gift rescue availability. No verified private expansion offer. Analyst judgment.
Annual fatal OD / other death hazards
0.04 / 0.03 (range: OD 0.015–0.06; high other-death scenario 0.16). Not risks for every program client. Constant hazards are not a fitted recovery or age-specific model; external survivor evidence cautions against full-lifetime rescue credit. Selected-cohort judgments.
Residual addressable gap / effective timely response
10% / 90% (range: Zero gap through favorable 25% / 95%). Includes witnessing, timing, uptake and partner overlap. Central remaining OD hazard falls 9%; no additional witness or adherence multiplier. Analyst judgments; external mechanism evidence.
Utility / finite horizon
0.8 / 10 years (range: Utility 0.7–1.0; horizons 1–15 years). Count extra alive-time once. Full-health utility sensitivity included; social status is not treated as human worth. Analyst judgment.
SF / Bay resident shares
90% / 98% (range: SF 80–95% joint cases). The same full gift is divided by regional health. Shares apply to harms as well and are not measured clinic-location fractions. Nested residence priors.
Other gross resources / shared harm per offer
$25 / 0.0005 QALY (range: Zero extra cost; null and independent-harm cases). Resources are outside donor cash and count all offers, including replacement and failure. No net societal cost or savings claim. Unpriced stress judgments.

Same $100,000 unrestricted gift in every scenario

  • central: SF donor: $1,969,157/10 QALYs. Central: 25% peer allocation and 50% funding additionality. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.56425725 / 0.55297211 / 0.50783153. US/Bay donor: $1,772,241/10 QALYs / $1,808,409/10 QALYs. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: $2,003,344/10 QALYs.
  • favorable joint stress: SF donor: $45,762/10 QALYs. Joint favorable: 50% allocation, $45/hour, 3 hours/offer, 75% additionality, higher risk/gap, 15-year horizon; not a confidence bound or verified offer. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 23.002121 / 22.542079 / 21.852015. US/Bay donor: $43,474/10 QALYs / $44,361/10 QALYs. Gross resources $109,259; SF resource: $50,000/10 QALYs.
  • adverse joint stress: SF donor: $3,219,771,445/10 QALYs. Joint adverse: 10% allocation, $90/hour, 12 hours/offer, 20% additionality, lower risk/gap, 5-year horizon. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.00038822631 / 0.00038046179 / 0.00031058105. US/Bay donor: $2,575,817,156/10 QALYs / $2,628,384,853/10 QALYs. Gross resources $100,231; SF resource: $3,227,224,619/10 QALYs.
  • no additional activity: SF donor: no finite positive ratio. Zero funding additionality; shared effects vanish. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.0000000 / 0.0000000 / 0.0000000. Zero modeled health; no positive benefit ratio. US/Bay donor: no finite positive ratio / no finite positive ratio. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: no finite positive ratio.
  • no residual coverage gap: SF donor: no finite positive ratio. Zero residual coverage gap; shared harm remains. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: -0.017361111 / -0.017013889 / -0.015625000. Net modeled harm; no positive benefit ratio. US/Bay donor: no finite positive ratio / no finite positive ratio. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: no finite positive ratio.
  • ineffective response: SF donor: no finite positive ratio. Zero rescue effectiveness; shared harm remains. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: -0.017361111 / -0.017013889 / -0.015625000. Net modeled harm; no positive benefit ratio. US/Bay donor: no finite positive ratio / no finite positive ratio. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: no finite positive ratio.
  • null without shared harm: SF donor: no finite positive ratio. Zero gap and shared harm: exact null. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.0000000 / 0.0000000 / 0.0000000. Zero modeled health; no positive benefit ratio. US/Bay donor: no finite positive ratio / no finite positive ratio. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: no finite positive ratio.
  • independent donor harm: SF donor: no finite positive ratio. Zero additionality, independent 0.05 US QALY loss. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: -0.050000000 / -0.049000000 / -0.045000000. Net modeled harm; no positive benefit ratio. US/Bay donor: no finite positive ratio / no finite positive ratio. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: no finite positive ratio.
  • one year health window: SF donor: $38,114,805/10 QALYs. First service-year health only. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.029151694 / 0.028568660 / 0.026236524. US/Bay donor: $34,303,324/10 QALYs / $35,003,392/10 QALYs. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: $38,776,520/10 QALYs.
  • high competing mortality: SF donor: $3,407,752/10 QALYs. Other-death hazard 0.16/year. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.32605398 / 0.31953290 / 0.29344858. US/Bay donor: $3,066,977/10 QALYs / $3,129,568/10 QALYs. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: $3,466,914/10 QALYs.
  • one extra year delay: SF donor: $2,030,106/10 QALYs. Start 1.25 years after gift. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.54731691 / 0.53637057 / 0.49258522. US/Bay donor: $1,827,095/10 QALYs / $1,864,383/10 QALYs. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: $2,065,350/10 QALYs.
  • full health utility: SF donor: $1,565,691/10 QALYs. Utility 1. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.70966184 / 0.69546860 / 0.63869566. US/Bay donor: $1,409,122/10 QALYs / $1,437,879/10 QALYs. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: $1,592,873/10 QALYs.
  • zero extra resources lower bound: SF donor: $1,969,157/10 QALYs. Zero extra outside resources; unverified lower bound. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.56425725 / 0.55297211 / 0.50783153. US/Bay donor: $1,772,241/10 QALYs / $1,808,409/10 QALYs. Gross resources $100,000; SF resource: $1,969,157/10 QALYs.
  • no peer allocation: SF donor: no finite positive ratio. Zero peer allocation. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.0000000 / 0.0000000 / 0.0000000. Zero modeled health; no positive benefit ratio. US/Bay donor: no finite positive ratio / no finite positive ratio. Gross resources $100,000; SF resource: no finite positive ratio.
  • strong public baseline: SF donor: $17,702,938/10 QALYs. Gap 3% and additionality 20%: stronger public baseline. Full $100,000 gift retained. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.062764221 / 0.061508937 / 0.056487799. US/Bay donor: $15,932,644/10 QALYs / $16,257,800/10 QALYs. Gross resources $101,736; SF resource: $18,010,281/10 QALYs.

Uncertainty. One-year health clipping is $38.11M/10 SF QALYs. Joint favorable $45,762 is not an established local bargain; strong public baseline is $17.70M. These are structural stresses, not fitted probabilities.

5. Funding and previous grants

The current independent recipient and services are identified, but historical sponsor accounts cannot substitute for the independent organization’s finances. Confirm current contracts, public support and extra peer-response capacity before using the assumed allocation of a gift as a recommendation.

No verified costed additional cohort or $100,000 peer-response funding offer.

Independent EIN and current services are verified. Public CHOPP and ambassador funding remains baseline; the sponsor/direct contract split, complete current budget and marginal gift allocation are unresolved.

This review does not establish a verified marginal funding offer or a complete history of grants.

Donate

Opens the organization’s giving page. A general donation may not fund the specific activity modeled here; confirm allocation with the recipient.

6. Sources

  1. Official general giving and independent EIN. Code Tenderloin. Primary provider disclosure. Published: Undated; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  2. California EO Business Master File: EIN 933030657. IRS. Primary regulator record; exact row preserved. Published: Current downloaded file; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  3. Grantee partner updates and celebration 2025. SV2. Primary funder report. Published: June 2, 2025; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  4. Community Ambassador Program. Code Tenderloin. Primary role and indicative wage disclosure. Published: Undated; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  5. Treatment Navigation Guide. SFDPH. Current primary directory. Published: September 1, 2026 retrieved version; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  6. Form 990, year ended September 30, 2024. Center for New Music / IRS. Primary filed return rendered by ProPublica. Published: Filed August 6, 2025; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  7. CHOPP agreement request, contract 1000034290. SFDPH. Primary request, not expenditure record. Published: June 2, 2025; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  8. Modeling overdose and naloxone distribution with fentanyl versus heroin. Coffin, Maya and Kahn. Primary model abstract. Published: 2022; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  9. One-year mortality after ED treatment for nonfatal opioid overdose. Weiner et al.. Primary observational cohort abstract. Published: 2020; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  10. Naloxone Distribution Project. DHCS. Primary state public-supply program. Published: Current page; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  11. Overdose prevention and response,2025 totals. San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Primary partner baseline disclosure. Published: 2025 totals on current page; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  12. 2025 impact report: Code Tenderloin partnership. San Francisco Community Health Center. Primary partner disclosure; not causal evaluation. Published: September 2025; retrieved: September 8, 2026.

Annual expenses: years and sources

Average annual expenses (three consecutive fiscal years): Not available. Organization size is separate from the modeled cost-effectiveness of a donation.

Code Tenderloin Inc.

A standalone three-year expense series is not available. Historical fiscal-sponsor totals are excluded.