Thoughts from the C.E.O.
Dear Partners,
Social Venture Partners has never been politically partisan and this message, while expressly reacting to a national election, is not about politics per se. It’s about who we are as a Partnership against the backdrop of our society.
No matter your politics or your candidate of choice—if you are celebrating or sobbing this morning—this election showed a dark side of America that I want to address. The results defied the polls because many people—and as the data we’re waking up to shows, white working class people—were reluctant to admit they wanted to vote with their anger and fear. These emotions are understandable when confronted by a movement that must declare that Black Lives Matter. It’s hard to confront that America needs such a movement because of the experience of black lives in our country. And one reaction is to fight back. It is to protect one’s power and one’s “rights”—to a job, to be free of responsibility for historical racism or classism, even to an ideal of “color-blindness.”
Another reaction is to listen and learn. To be attentive to lived human experience that does not mirror my own. To act boldly in trying to make a difference but humble about my contribution to it. I want to lead SVP with this spirit. I want SVP to lead with this spirit. I want our Partnership to reflect the rainbow of perspectives, experiences, races, and cultures in our community. But more than that, I want our Partnership to serve as a beacon in our community and beyond as people who really listen to the lived experience of the children and families we want to serve, who are willing to recognize that our institutions have systematically disadvantaged kids of color and kids in poverty, who are willing to look at our own power and privilege, not with shame but with gracious recognition of how we gained it and a desire to use it for the benefit of those who have less of it—thus giving up some power to achieve a greater good for society.
Many Partners and people have challenged me over the past year about focusing on racial equity in our grantmaking and community impact. They believe that our resources should be color-blind. I respond that if the education and life outcomes for kids in our community were color-blind, our resources could be as well. But kids of color are systematically left behind so our resources and influence must systematically overcorrect and undermine that disadvantage. All resources that truly seek to impact the root causes of failures in education and the economy must be targeted (and thus, race-, culture-, class-specific) or they risk missing the mark…or worse still, perpetuating the disadvantages.
Our Partnership will argue about how to interpret various data. We will wrestle with different ways of addressing the needs and issues. We will confront limitations in our knowledge and experience of racism and probably stick our individual and collective foots in our mouths a few times. (I do that regularly. Perhaps I’m doing it right now.) But in this world, at this time, our Partnership must be people with hope to bring. There are few places where individuals with resources come together with a social purpose like ours. So we must believe in the possibility of change and actively build pathways and invest deeply to make it happen. And we must do so with humility, proud of our efforts and still recognizing that we walk behind leaders who have preceded us in this effort, walk beside people using their unique power in equal force for lasting change, and walk ahead of people that will be inspired by our actions.
I am saddened by the angry spirit of our country but emboldened for our Partnership to be a bright light of possibility grounded in the reality of our past and present. I ask each of you to be the manifestation of that light, to humbly listen to the lived experiences that form our current reality and to continue investing with us in real, lasting and difficult change for our community. Be that person in the coming days so light will overcome the darkness of our national spirit.
In partnership,
Mark