Featured Projects
Changing Culture & Building Power: Evaluating Berkeley’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax
In 2014, voters in Berkeley passed Measure D, the nation’s first tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverages, positioning the policy not only as a strategy to reduce chronic disease risk but also as a mechanism to advance racial equity and invest in community-led health initiatives.
From 2023-2024, the Praxis Project partnered with Shayla Spilker Consulting to conduct a 10-year impact evaluation using a culturally responsive, mixed-methods approach that combined retrospective analysis and data collection with residents, advocates, and program participants. Grounded in a story-centered methodology, the evaluation examined how tax revenues supported systems change, strengthened community power, and contributed to culture shifts around health within the city of Berkeley. This work culminated in a public-facing report with recommendations for Berkeley and other municipalities considering similar policies, while also informing real-time strategic decision-making related to the City’s 2024 ballot efforts to extend the tax.
Women’s Opportunity Fund Research & Design.
The Women’s Opportunity Fund is a Tipping Point Community Foundation demonstration project supporting Bay Area women’s transition from low-wage work to higher-wage careers, with Shayla contributing formative research, participatory design, and an implementation blueprint in partnership with Bienestar Community Economics
Council District 8: Reimagining Community Investment
Efforts to shift public dollars away from punitive systems continue to gain traction nationwide. Rather than focusing on dismantling systems, these movements demonstrate the meaningful impact that even modest municipal reinvestments can have on improving quality of life and reducing harmful system involvement. In 2022–2023, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson reinvested $3.24 million from policing budgets into 57 community-based organizations serving residents of Los Angeles’s Council District 8 (CD8).
In 2023, Jemmott-Rollins Group (the CD8 Grant Fund administrator) partnered with Shayla Spilker Consulting to conduct an evaluation of the Fund. The evaluation culminated in a report that illustrates how a community-grounded grantmaking approach successfully directed critical resources across the region, demonstrating what becomes possible when local government and municipal budgeting prioritize a holistic vision of community health, economic opportunity, and overall quality of life.