Boyce Smith: Why am I an SVP Partner?

A long time ago (before SVP), my wife Lori and I agreed that our charitable focus would be on “kids and education.” As a founding partner of SVP Portland, I was involved in the whole process of figuring out how we should set up the non-profit. One of the votes ended in having SVP focused on “kids and education” and it is still the focus. In addition, I have always liked the venture process of finding a good non-profit and then helping make it better through some funding, but more importantly through the volunteer efforts of our partners using their professional skills. SVP has evolved over the 13 years it has been in existence (e.g., taking on a much larger role in our R4K efforts) but we are still working with individual non-profits to improve their capabilities.  In my retired life, I have always said that I am not looking for a job. Working on specific, well defined projects allows me to participate in a constructive manner without committing to “a job”. The whole SVP model has allowed me to vary my level of participation over the years based on my availability. The model works really well!