Re-investing in the Native American Youth and Family Center
Written by SVP Partner Rebecca Brown Schroeder, Lead Partner at the Native American Youth and Family Center and Interim Partnership Manager at SVP.
I am pleased to share that SVP’s Capacity Investment Team--the group of Partners in charge of overseeing SVP's community investments--has approved the reinvestment proposal co-developed this summer by the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) and the SVP Reinvestment Team. Our investment includes an additional two years of Partner time and expertise and a $50,000 general operating grant ($25,000 each year, contingent upon strong partnership progress).
SVP’s renewed investment will continue to help build NAYA’s capacity to be a stable, sustainable and innovative organization while expanding their high-quality, culturally-specific early childhood programs and advocating for systems change throughout our community. Specifically, SVP and NAYA will partner to:
Expand NAYA’s capacity to measure, analyze and communicate data to both prove and improve their outcomes in early childhood programming and throughout the organization.
Finalize and share a sustainable business model and plan for early childhood services expansion.
Support NAYA’s development of their role as system change advocates through strategic partnerships and expansion of internal resources.
Develop a plan to attract investments in NAYA’s early childhood services expansion and unrestricted funding for long-term organizational stability and innovation.
Build leadership capacity throughout the organization.
This reinvestment builds on our work together over the past two years. Some notable successes have been the implementation of early childhood models identified by NAYA’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, including a home visiting program now funded by the Portland Children’s Levy and a soon-to-be-open Early Head Start program serving an additional 16 young children ages 0-3 and their families. With SVP Partner leadership, NAYA is also well underway developing a sustainable business model and plan for reaching their goal of serving over 400 young children ages 0-6 per year by 2020, including the innovative Generations Early Learning Academy. Through participation in Project Impact and assistance from SVP volunteers, NAYA has made considerable progress on early childhood outcomes measurement. SVP Partners and financial support have also helped expand NAYA’s overall capacity in fund development and marketing/communications, leading to several successful grant applications. NAYA estimates that SVP support has helped their organization leverage almost $1,000,000 in early childhood education funds over three years.
The success of our investment in NAYA Family Center is thanks to an incredible team of Partners, volunteers and SVP staff who have dedicated an amazing amount of time and expertise - Some through on-going projects and support; some with brief engagement around a particular capacity building area. All with lasting impact. To date, the SVP/NAYA team has included:
Stephanie Feeney - Early Childhood Advisory Council, Early Childhood Services
Carolyn Manke - Outcomes Data Measurement and Analysis, Early Childhood Advisory Council
Rod MacDow - Business Plan Development
Carlo Delumpa - Marketing and Communications
Lou Jaffe - Finance
John Chang - Finance
Mark Fulop - Fund Development
Natalie Maciukenas - Graphic Design
Jerry Zygmuntowicz - Strategic Planning
Krista Larson - Executive Consulting, Program Expansion
Carol Rossio - Microenterprise Encore Fellow
Jason Gates - Lead Strategic Advisor
Renee Rhiner - Lead Strategic Advisor, Generations Project Team
Valerie Ilsley - NAYA Reinvestment Team member, Lead Strategic Advisor
Wendy Weissman - Human Resources, Advisor to Lead Partners and Investee Engagements
Lauren Johnson - SVP Director of Community Impact
Rebecca Brown Schroeder - Lead Partner
NAYA Family Center is in its 41st year of providing culturally-specific, community-driven and elder-guided services to the Portland urban Native American community. The organization directly serves over 2,000 individuals from over 380 tribal backgrounds annually, providing children and families with wrap-around supports to help them overcome barriers to education, housing and prosperity. As a leader and innovator in quality culturally-specific early childhood programs, NAYA is uniquely poised to impact the lives of some of our community’s most underserved children and families, setting them on paths to success. We are thrilled to be working in partnership with NAYA to drive progress toward our goal of eliminating early childhood inequities and making sure all children in the Portland Metro area are prepared for Kindergarten.