KairosPDX: 13x Return on Investment to date
KairosPDX is a nonprofit committed to attacking Portland’s persistent achievement gap through innovative pedagogy, community collaboration and family partnership.
SVP has worked with Kairos in 2014 to give their vision legs (lots of tiny little kindergarten ones!). SVP’s “Accelerator Investment” leveraged a seed grant and critical expertise, tools, and networks of influence to help Kairos’ leaders round out their educational expertise with operational planning and execution. In August, their vision came to life for 40 new students and families at their new Learning Academy.
WHAT WE DID
Invested $12,500 Seed Grant.
Helped earn $130,000 to date
Volunteered 170 hours of Sweat Equity focused on business strategy, volunteer management, fund development, marketing, organizational infrastructure, program evaluation.
Return on Investment(ROI), to date = (12,500+130,000+17000)/12,500 = 13x
WHO HELPED
Lead Partner: Dave Riveness
Strategic Advisors: Bill Porter, Barbara Francis
Subject Matter Volunteers: Carlo DeLumpa, Laura Finney, Trevor Fox, Larry Fox, Mark Fulop, Carolyn Manke, David Keyes, Kirt Nilsson, Ashley Nixon, Maren Symonds, Wendy Weissman.
“SVP, through their accelerator project has had a tremendous impact on our ability to grow our capacity under a short-time frame. The high level of expertise and consulting they brought to the table through their partners was invaluable and otherwise unaffordable to us as a small start-up non-profit with an equally small budget. Once more, I will be forever grateful to Dave Riveness, our rockstar SVP liaison who helped keep this partnership not only moving in the right direction, but fun.”- Kali Ladd, Executive Director
"It has been a pleasure working with the remarkable leaders of KairosPDX. Over the course of only six months, SVP coordinated expertise and knowledge sharing from over ten partners and volunteers in multiple areas. In doing so, we helped move KairosPDX significantly forward in their capacity as an organization, contributing to their recent accomplishments including the successful, on time, opening of their charter school this past August. While the overall vision of KairosPDX is remarkable, seeing the smiling faces on the students (and their parents!) on opening day of the new Learning Academy reminded me how much impact also happens at the individual level. I look forward to seeing just what KairosPDX accomplishes over the next couple of years. I think it will be astounding ... and SVP will be proud to have contributed." - Dave Riveness, Lead SVP Partner
"I believe that getting all children in Portland ready for kindergarten will require ingenuity, new leadership and stronger efforts to connect early learning and K-12 schools. The founders of KAIROS bring all these assets. I'm grateful for their vision and commitment. I'm grateful to SVP and my fellow partners for supporting this work. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to work in common cause with others to make our audacious goal for kindergarten readiness a reality." - Bill Porter, SVP Partner