"Part of the joy of being in a new city is the chance to build one's community. During this time of isolation, where so many things feel upside down, I found myself really craving ways to make a meaningful local impact and build my network. SVP Portland turns out to be the perfect solution."

The Portfolio Management Team just announced two new approved investments, and interestingly, these new MOUs are with one of our newest Community Partners and with our longest ongoing relationship. These two partnerships are great examples of how SVP works with community organizations throughout their life cycles.

In May 2020, a group of SVP Partners came together with a diverse group of child care advocates to create the Oregon Child Care Provider Relief Guide for Oregon’s child care providers struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. After the relief guide launched, the coalition continued meeting and asked: What more can we do? How can we help small providers survive and thrive, not just through the pandemic, but for the long-term? The answer was shared services.

As many of you know, the SVP Portland board of directors gathers each summer, typically in August, for an all-day retreat, where we evaluate goal progress, consider shifts in landscape, and determine strategic priorities moving forward. In the gazillionth example of how 2020 is very different, this year’s retreat was a three-part series of Zoom calls. Each call was two and a half hours, and each focused on a single significant topic that will inform the board’s strategic thinking and planning going forward.

"What I’ve really been struck by is the Partners. SVP boasts many highly-successful, highly-knowledgeable Partners. The collective influence and intellectual capital is, not surprisingly, exceptional. The way Partners support, respect, and value one another and the Community Partners is exceptional as well."

After years of preparation and coalition building, the Multnomah County Preschool for All campaign is off and running – YES on Measure 26-214!  Helping the P4A broad coalition secure victory will be a major milestone toward our Access to Preschool goal and will improve generations of lives in our community – a game changer for kids and working families!

With more than half of 2020 behind us, we want to share an update with our Partnership on SVP Portland’s accomplishments, challenges, and impact so far this year. In the midst of the massive impact of the pandemic and a long overdue national awakening to the need for fighting systemic racism, we want to circle back to our 2019-2021 Strategic Vision and share progress toward our three Strategic Priorities.

“We are incredibly grateful for our long-standing partnership with SVP Portland,” says Terri Sorensen. “The work we’ve done with SVP has been critical to our scaling efforts. We had a lot of work to do so we had the internal capacity to scale our model, and to ensure the organization was sustainable. SVP was able to look at every aspect of our organization and invest in our leadership and infrastructure so that we could scale.”

"I already knew something about SVP through my fellowship, and the concept of venture philanthropy appealed to me from the start. In my mind it is not unlike the venture capital firms that operate in the technology industry. These firms not only provide a timely investment, they also understand that they need to provide expert advice and support to help the entrepreneurs succeed. It has been a very successful model in enabling innovation in the for-profit world and seemed to me to be well suited for helping young and innovative nonprofits as well."

Sarah was not simply our Community Impact Manager, she was the heart of our team. Her passion and commitment to SVP’s work shone brightly, and it reverberated throughout our Partnership. We have been overwhelmed with messages of admiration and support from so many of you, and they have meant a great deal to our team. Sarah was truly loved and will be profoundly missed.

SVP Portland is committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion. As a Partnership, we have the opportunity to support each other’s personal journey. Joan Cameron, one of our newest Partners shares her story and why she joined SVP. 

SVP Portland joined forces with five of our Community Partners in 2018 to formally establish the Equity Collaborative. The Collaborative’s goal is to increase investment in culturally-specific early childhood practices and shift the public narrative to make equity a priority in Oregon’s early education system. Together, we were successful in securing $20 million for the next two years to support those programs.

The COVID-19 epidemic has caused disproportionate devastation for communities of color. Bahia Overton, Executive Director of Black Parent Initiative, recently shared a personal story about her cousin who was diagnosed with COVID-19… and the insufferable process that her family experienced to receive the care that was readily offered to white patients. 

Our Community Partners are on the front lines addressing the challenges brought on by COVID-19, as well as the anguish spurred by the killing of George Floyd. We recently had the opportunity to hear directly from two of them: the Executive Directors of Portland Children’s Museum and Black Parent Initiative (BPI). Learning from the expertise and wisdom of community leaders was incredibly powerful.