Updates & Reflections on Year 1 of KairosPDX Investment
Greetings SVP Partners and Allies! As we take time to acknowledge the abundance in our lives and consider “what’s next” as the calendar page flips over, I wanted to offer some updates and reflections as Lead Partner for KairosPDX. A year ago, we set an extremely ambitious agenda for our capacity-building investment with KairosPDX. Nine generous and expert Partners and one highly talented Encore Fellow joined our team to “roll up our sleeves” across five+ capacity goals. What follows is some of the measurable progress we’ve made so far and what lies ahead for year two.
Financial Systems Development: As a brand new start-up, it wasn’t surprising that a key area of concern was Kairos’s financial systems. An SVP Partner and Encore Fellow helped create a fiscal manual, established a system for financial controls and compliance, and implemented forecasting tools for decision-making. The proof of concept for the SVP contribution: Kairos’s first formal audit was deemed “clean!”
Fund Development: Two SVP Partners provided strong support for Kairos’s Fund Development–both strategy and execution. Their focus has been on foundation and individual donor strategies, including hands-on support for grant writing and editing, event planning and year-end appeals. Kairos currently lacks a full time employee dedicated to grant writing and fundraising, other than Executive Director Kali Ladd’s passionate attention to this critical set of activities.
Volunteer Management: Kairos is heavily reliant on classroom volunteers, as well as specialists to help with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education (STEM), garden-nutrition and music/art activities. Thanks to Kali’s strong community network, we were able to help her select and secure an AmeriCorps person for one year who is currently focused on development of systems and tools for Volunteer Management. For 2016, we will likely again tap SVP Partner resources to try to develop a sustainable stream of volunteers from the corporate sector.
Recruitment and Staffing (HR): Kairos doubled their student enrollment for Fall 2015. Two Partners provided expert, hands-on staffing support prior to the opening of Kairos’ second academic year. This was a 6-8 week effort with direct Partner support to recruit, screen and interview candidates, laying the groundwork for a robust recruitment and staffing process that will serve them year after year. For 2016, we will likely use Partner resources to develop a strategic relationship with a local/regional teaching college in order to access high potential new teachers.
Leadership Development: As a Founder-led organization, leadership development as well as clarity in roles and responsibilities can be a tricky set of issues…normal and expected in any start-up operation. Two Partners assisted the Kairos leadership team in planning their way through a set of leadership transition questions. The nature of this work was a testament to the level of trust and relationship between SVP and the Kairos leadership team. For 2016 we will continue to focus on building out their management system(s), including focus on Leadership Development.
Marketing, Branding and Communications: Kali has proven to be a remarkable community advocate and networker, evidenced by Kairos’s growing profile across the greater Portland community. To support Kali’s strategic marketing efforts, an SVP Partner resource facilitated the formation of a Marketing Task Force–their work will be extended into 2016.
ENORMOUS thanks to our Partners and Encore Fellow for your extraordinary efforts to date! We are delighted to announce the renewal of our investment with Kairos for 2016. Similar to other SVP Investee engagements, our first year of work together included a tremendous amount of learning to understand where and how we could work together to increase Kairos’s organizational effectiveness to attack Portland’s persistent achievement gap for disadvantaged children. We are honored to continue this critical work in partnership with Kairos.