The season of giving is upon us! When making your donations this giving season, check out the tips from Katherine Fox, CFP® and Investment Advisor at SVP Business Partner Arnerich Massena, to help you and your family maximize your dollar. We celebrate the impact you’re making on our community and the world through your donations!

SVP Business Partner Brighton Jones is a financial wellbeing company that joined our Partnership in 2020 because they are a philanthropically-minded organization that wants to give employees opportunities to engage with SVP and our Community Partners. Erica Penner was one of its first employees who was eager to engage. "I have had the privilege to learn about the wide variety of backgrounds, expertise, and careers of other SVP Partners along with the phenomenal organizations that we support as a collective."

How many of us have a childhood aspiration and actually have the opportunity to achieve it? We now know one of those people: Matt Little, SVP Portland’s Director of Investor Partnerships. Many of you know Matt because he helped recruit you to become a Partner, or because you’ve met with him to discuss engagement opportunities at SVP.What you may not know is that Matt dreamed of working at Ducks Unlimited since he was a kid in Minnesota hunting, fishing, and exploring with his dad. So, when the organization recently recruited him to be the Director of Policy for the Western Region, Matt accepted. Matt will be working on his dream to promote policies that conserve wetlands and wildlife. Staff and Partners alike feel this is bittersweet, and it is with both sadness and excitement that we wish Matt our best with his new role starting December 1.

SVP Portland began our partnership with Adelante Mujeres in 2012 to help them realize their goals, including strategic planning, which ultimately led to the desired organizational growth. Adelante Mujeres served nearly 3,000 people and had eight programs in 2012. Today they serve more than 10,000 people and have ten thriving programs, including an Early Childhood Education Program.

Like SVP Portland, SVP Los Angeles has focused on having a deep and lasting impact through investments in nonprofit organizations and community initiatives. Last week, SVP Los Angeles renamed their organization to Social Justice Partners Los Angeles (SJPLA) to better reflect their purpose: to connect people creating systems of care and community for the well-being and liberation of all Angelenos.

Our longtime Community Partner, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), supports community members to become self-sufficient and thrive through creative programming, outreach, and education that foster understanding, compassion, and communication. One of their many programs worth celebrating is the IRCO Youth Outreach team. This year, the IRCO Youth Outreach team turned an idea into a reality by offering a Life Skills Month, where teens from immigrant and refugee families learned a particular life skill each week. Life Skills Month grew out of intentionally listening to how kids want to change the trajectory of their lives and their interest in envisioning their own bright futures.

As a part of our commitment to advance our goal of being more diverse, inclusive, and equitable, we recently sought to hear directly from our Community Partners about how we can be more effective collaborators. We also wanted to learn how they experience SVP, particularly around decision making, power sharing, and relationships with communities of color. Encore Fellow Kaye Gardner-O’Kearny conducted deep-dive interviews with our Community Partners and solicited feedback from an anonymous survey before drafting a report.

Czarina Boyce is one of SVP Portland's newest Partners. She has a wealth of experience from working with organizations that support children and their education, including co-founding Hope Chinese Charter School, the first public Chinese immersion school in the Beaverton School District. "I love the idea of not just giving money, but being able to give time and my talent to benefit my community. For me it is a win-win situation: I get to help people and have a chance to collaborate with other SVP Partners, making a meaningful impact on society by serving the youngest members of the community."

Our longtime Community Partner, Latino Network, is building its first home! As with any friend committing to their forever home, we're so excited for them and want to help. It has been an honor and a privilege to have worked alongside this amazing organization for the last 7.5 years as lead partner. The tremendous growth of Latino Network and the increased impact on the community has been truly amazing. We now all have an opportunity to contribute to the continued growth of Latino Network and even greater impact on our Latinx community.

SVP Partner Mark Holloway recently published an article in EdSurge, “How Did Portland Pull Off a Universal Pre-K Victory? We Started with the Fundamentals.” This article focuses on the importance of a focused strategy and shared power that achieved the collective goal of preschool for all in Multnomah County.

On Thursday, October 14 former SVP Portland Community Partner Children’s Book Bank (CBB) announced their merger with SMART Reading. This unification will allow both organizations to have a collective impact that is greater than the sum of its parts. Their missions are already aligned -- they both aim to advance child literacy and allow Oregon children greater access to books -- and together there is huge potential to expand their reach throughout Oregon.

"The Afghan exodus is a time-critical, humanitarian crisis and SVP Partners, at our best, are responsive to community needs and thoughtful about where best to invest our resources. In this case, giving to a Community Partner who is at the center of this effort is an easy, clear choice." SVP Partner Mark Holloway shares about a community need being addressed by our Community Partner, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) -- and how you can help. Partners play an important role in supporting Community Partner fundraising efforts through direct giving along with collective fundraising through their networks.

Jodi was a Partner at SVP Charlotte from 2015 to 2019 before moving to Portland. As a life and career-transition coach and consultant, she brings valuable insights in coaching and leadership development to the SVP Portland partnership. "Partners see that their collective efforts help pave the way for dramatic impact toward a shared equity goal. I love being able to volunteer in a way that has ripple effects into multiple organizations and allows me to use my strongest skill set."

SVP Portland was recently featured in a Philanthropy Together article on Giving Compass, “Hungry to Learn, Hungry to Transform: Advocating for Universal Early Education with SVP Portland,” highlighting how we deftly pivoted from a broad investment approach to focusing on the community goal of equitable preschool access.

Capacity building is an investment in the futures of nonprofits and, when successful, it strengthens their ability to fulfill their missions and make positive changes over a longer period of time. SVP Portland supports local nonprofits, and our Investor Partners are part of our secret sauce. We often get questions from newer Partners about the kinds of work that we do and how to get more involved with nonprofits directly. Many nonprofit face resource constraints, both in terms of skills and bandwidth, which limit organizational growth and health. This is where SVP as a capacity builder is positioned to collaborate with Community Partners to leverage the strengths within their organization, identify infrastructure and skill gaps, and pair resources to solve bigger challenges together.

Steve Maser joined SVP Portland’s staff as manager of the Encore Fellows Program, and then returned as a Partner so he could apply his professional expertise and remain intellectually engaged in retirement. He now leads the team with one of SVP’s newest Community Partners, the Alliance for Equity in Montessori Education (AEME). "SVP presents me with opportunities to learn, to grow, and to get to know other similarly motivated professionals. In that sense, SVP serves my interests in philanthropy, provides me with a sense of community, and gives me opportunities to do meaningful work." 

The Preschool for All victory is a story about partnership. SVP Portland helped build relationships between parents, preschool providers, and community leaders, and collaborated with cross-sector allies to design the policy and drive the campaign. The Preschool for All victory highlights thinking beyond the dogma of top-down philanthropy to build trust and credibility with the community. As SVP Portland Executive Director Lauren Johnson put it, “Our experiences can serve as a roadmap to other communities seeking to engage in community-based, participatory policy development.”

Elizabeth joined SVP Portland in August of 2021 after working at the University of Portland for the past three years where she developed and executed marketing strategies. As Communications & Project Coordinator, Elizabeth helps share the inspiring stories of impact and growth through various media channels, including the website, newsletter, and social media. She also engages with Partners and supports staff success. Elizabeth has a background in education, administration, and equity work.

"As many of you know, we have been exploring changes to our governance model since last February, convening a Board task team to rough out ideas, then seeking input from the full Board, and SVP Partners, and are in the process of gathering input from Community Partners. At the core, the changes orient around narrowing the scope and responsibilities of the Board to those essential elements required by Oregon State law, and creating dynamically configured teams to tackle elements like strategic planning and formation of our next Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), while maintaining existing standing Committees/Teams."