Investing in the Future of North Portland

Since the dawn of SVP Portland, we chose to invest our resources in nonprofits through a fairly traditional Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Nonprofits applied to receive SVP investments and a team of Partners chose promising organizations they believed would best leverage SVP’s resources. The process served its purpose and lead to strong investments that benefited children and families in our region.

But with our focus on getting every child in Multnomah County ready for kindergarten, we needed to be more proactive in order to find the investments that would have the most direct impact. This year our process for choosing Investees was much more collaborative, iterative and organic in order to find solutions to well-defined early childhood community needs. Read more about our collaborative investment process here.

Through the new investment process, KairosPDX emerged as an audacious, highly collaborative organization with an innovative vision for eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in kindergarten readiness. This organization is committed to serving the diverse neighborhoods of North Portland by cultivating confident, creative, compassionate leaders exceeding academic standards at each developmental milestone. KairosPDX will launch a K-5 Learning Academy, Family Connections Program, Early Learning Center and Early Learning Network in order to meet its mission.SVP Partners are working closely with KairosPDX over the next six months to facilitate a series of half-day work sessions on business strategy, fund development, staff and volunteer management, and marketing among other topics. KairosPDX will also receive a $10,000 Accelerator Grant to support their leadership to engage in these sessions.

This short-term partnership, coined “Accelerator” by the Investment Team, helps newly constituted non-profits refine their strategies, solidify near term operating plans, and build their core infrastructure.

We look forward to sharing the results of this partnership as the relationship with KairosPDX progresses and our Partners help build their foundation for significant community impact.