Blog
Celebrating SVP’s Collective Impact with the Early Childhood Funders Learning Circle
Earlier this year, SVP and a collection of Oregon funders invested $1.3 million to push for progress in early childhood learning, particularly in the way education providers are trained. This multi-funder collaborative project has made great progress, with a few SVP Partners on the ground guiding the effort.
Partner of the Month: Kerry McClenahan
As Kerry finishes a successful tour of duty on our Board, we must take the opportunity to honor her as Partner of the Month. We have half a mind to make her Partner of the Decade.
Children's Book Bank: The Impact of Representation
It's important to see how our Investees touch lives. Dani Swope, Executive Director of the Children’s Book Bank (CBB), shared a story of how books can bring communities and cultures to life for children, and give them the representation they need to make reading relatable.
QA with Jane Williams-Grube, Lead Partner for IRCO
"IRCO was on my radar ever since I moved to Portland. Perhaps I saw it as a way of giving back to the many people in countries where I lived, who helped me navigate culture and language while making me feel safe and comfortable in my new surroundings. I wanted to be involved."
Partner of the Month: Noelle Studer-Spevak
Noelle Studer-Spevak is our Partner of the Month! Noelle has been a Partner for two years and recently received the Oregon PTA Advocate for Children Award.
Advancing Racial Equity: Together We Can
As a partnership, we have expeditiously ventured into the racial and cultural equity space. We’ve been working hard to solidify our commitment, goal, and course of action, and we are bringing that work to bear. As we push our commitment to Advancing Racial Equity into the light, our CEO shares his experiences surrounding equity, diversity and inclusion with you.
Partner of the Month: David C. Smith
David brings confidence and depth of expertise to any project, while remaining humble and thoughtful. He pushes towards action and always follows through. It’s amazing how much he’s done during his time with the partnership.
NAYA Nurtures Native Youth: Early College Academy
We’d like to congratulate NAYA on their visionary program that offers a blended high school and postsecondary curriculum, small class sizes and individualized educational options for each student. The academic programming integrates Native culture, family and community outreach, and partnerships with postsecondary institutions.
SVP Makes Investment for Early Childhood Workforce Training
We’re incredibly pleased to announce our new partnership with the Early Childhood Funders Learning Circle (ECFLC) and their program, the Early Childhood Workforce Development Initiative. We’ve undertaken a 3-year investment of $75,000 ($25,000/year) in order to ensure that there are an adequate number of Master Trainers from communities of color, linguistically diverse communities, and rural Oregon.
Thanking Deb Mrazek for her Fellowship
Deb Mrazek has been working with SVP for two years as an Encore Fellow, and we are immensely grateful for her work. She has been deeply involved in integrating design and systems-thinking approaches into SVP. Deb has been invaluable in helping to map out the complexity of the Ready For Kindergarten “ecosystem,” and the build-out of SVP’s emerging strategic initiative focused on significantly increasing access to quality Pre-K.
The Lasting Impact of Prejudice
Last week we had the privilege of attending Dr. Larry Sherman’s lecture, “Your Racist Brain: The Neuroscience of Prejudice”. He explained that we have evolved to make quick judgements based on visual information. These judgements aren’t based on reason or experience, they’re based on instinct. It sounds bad, but we can use what we know about prejudice and the brain to develop methods to combat prejudice and racism.
Investee Spotlight: The Black Parent Initiative
With over 10 years experience serving the Black community, BPI intimately understands that the burden of racism is highly problematic for the betterment of the families in our community. In order to best improve the lives of Portland’s Black and multi-ethnic children, BPI provides services including parent coaching, parent training, and education.
Latino Network: Support the Early Childhood Equity Fund
Please join us this April 18th in Salem, Oregon to support SVP Investee Latino Network and the new legislation they are proposing, HB 3069, The Early Child Equity Fund. The Fund is an important step towards closing the kindergarten readiness gap for children of color in our community.
SVP Expands Its Partnership
We have been lucky enough to secure partnerships with several Portland businesses and deepen others. These partnerships not only allow SVP to tap into the great minds of some of local businesses’ best, but they also give corporations access to all the benefits of being an SVP partner – from human resources to marketing and public relations expertise.
In Memoriam: Jerry Jones
Jerry Gale Jones, esteemed Portland businessman, philanthropist, spiritual seeker and meditation teacher, peacefully passed away on December 29, 2016, at his home in Ojai, California. He will be remembered as a quiet, deep, hardworking, kind and generous man, a loving friend and father, and he will be greatly missed.
Notes from India: Think 10-Fold
A small group of SVP partners and staff crossed time zones to India to take part in the first national convening of affiliates around a single goal: one million livelihoods by 2020. The traveling cohort joined SVP India Partners and staff from chapters in Pune, Mumbai, Dehli, Bangalore and Hyderabad and nonprofit, government and corporate sector leaders for a think-tank summit, The Million Jobs Conclave.
