Dear SVP Friend,

It’s hard to believe that only a few months ago I was sitting in a small inner city apartment in Tokyo, where our SVP Tokyo Partners were discussing a plan for a new online agency which matches social entrepreneurs in Asia with Japanese donors.

Now as I write our SVP Tokyo friends struggle to bring lifesaving materials and supplies to those suffering from the massive earthquake, powerful tsunami and insidious radiation.  I am proud to say that not one day passed before SVP Partners in North America began mobilizing philanthropic support. 

Perhaps, as our Tokyo Partners shared in a call on April 18, this disaster, and SVP’s involvement, has a huge potential to transform the way Japanese nonprofits operate in Japan.

The Partners report that there is such devastation and so much to rebuild that the work will take decades.  “As people in the US are living in a different world after September 11th, Japanese people are living in a different world after March 11th," says Partner Shinichi Kamiyo, “it is not an overstatement – the consequences will have that magnitude.”

You can read details here about the relief and rebuilding.  For the short term, our partners in Tokyo are focusing on the most underserved and vulnerable: displaced pregnant women.  Longer term, they are bringing in a cadre of young “Social Entrepreneurs” to coordinate in the rural areas between the evacuees, the nonprofits and the government.  The “Support for Disaster Recovery Leaders” Project, they believe, is essential for the country to move out of crisis and into more balanced and sustainable resource allocation for the long term.

This is just one example of how SVP is solving the most entrenched social challenges facing our world.  Never before have I seen SVP galvanizing together in such a creative, influential and industrious manner.  And now, with a fresh strategic plan in place we are poised to take our collective work to a new level.  This will be a focus at the conference in Minnesota next fall. Get involved!  The call for conference sessions is open now.

I invite you to read more about the momentum we are raising together in your community and across the network.
                               

Warmly,

Ruth Jones
CEO, Social Venture Partners International

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 Contents:

• Network Collaboration Ramps Up! 
• Innovation: Tap into Encore Fellows 
• Disruptive Leadership at Camelback High 
• Intelligent Questions Bring Insightful Answers for Partner Growth
• Seeding SVP in Iran
• Branding SVP: Simple, Relevant, and Different
• Social Media: Learn from your VISTAs
• New SVP Staff 
• Get Engaged! Social Impact Exchange 2011 Conference

Network Collaboration Ramps Up!

SVPs in California launched the first ever California Regional Forum on April 14 with the intent to foster statewide collaboration.  Partners and staff from Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Silicon Valley explored ideas face-to-face and put a plan together to strengthen their SVP work together.  While the primary topic was learning about advocacy, the outcome was much bigger.  In fact, four Statewide Working Groups were formed.  Those in attendance pledged to collaborate on projects to leverage the SVP network, and invited each California partner to participate.  

Statewide Working Groups include:

• Statewide Social Innovation Fast Pitch
• Partner education on advocacy
• "Beta Test" SVP branding strategy
• Sharing/training across SVPs in California

 If you live in California and would like to get involved, contact the executive director of your SVP!

Tap Encore Fellows for Increased Program Growth

“If I only had more bandwidth, I could (fill in the blank).”   “With one more person on deck, I could make (such and such) happen.”   Sound familiar at your SVP?

There’s an innovative opportunity brewing and you can be a part of it if you want to increase the staffing and capacity of your SVP, your partners and investees and thus, make a bigger mark on your community.  Encore Fellowships might be for you. 

Lindsay Louie, SV2 Executive Director and Mark Holloway, SVP Portland Executive Director, are managing exciting new projects involving Encore Fellows and it shows promise.  Encore Fellowships are designed to deliver new sources of talent to organizations solving critical social problems. These paid, time-limited fellowships place seasoned private-sector professionals in or near retirement in social-purpose organizations.

During the fellowship period (typically six to twelve months, half to full time), the fellows take on roles that bring significant, sustained impact to their host organizations. While they are working, the fellows earn a stipend, learn about social-purpose work and develop a new network of contacts and resources for their next career in potentially the nonprofit sector.

SVPI is gauging interest in developing a network-wide Encore Fellows program, modeled on the current AmeriCorps*VISTA program. 

In February, SVP Portland launched their Partners Fellows Program with support from HP and expects to place six or more Encore Fellows at qualifying nonprofits in 2011.  SV2 is having similar success with a new hire for the New Teacher Center who was formerly VP Engineering for several Silicon Valley software and hardware companies. 

“With so many Boomers retiring everywhere, we are thrilled to share our model with SVP for utilizing retiree expertise to drive significant impact for nonprofits,” says Leslye Louie, National Director, Encore Fellowships Network and Senior Fellow, Civic Ventures.   “SVP is a clear leader for this type of highly leveraged community investment.” 

Lyle Hurst, who was an Encore Fellow for an environmental nonprofit and now works for Encore Fellowships says this about his experience, “I did things in my corporate career that I’m very proud of. I once developed a cost model that made a big difference in the success of a business. Somehow, at an emotional level, that doesn’t feel like a proud achievement to me. The work in the social sector is on a different plane.  It’s an opportunity to see firsthand an outcome:   a child learns that wouldn’t have learned; a child eventually goes to college who might not have gone to college.”

Stay tuned for more info on how to tap into Encore Fellows.

Disruptive Leadership Key to Dramatic Turnaround at Public High School

Camelback High School, an SVP Arizona investee

At its heyday, Camelback High School was one of the best public schools in the state.  It sits on the border of a high income zip code in Phoenix, Arizona.  But as the school demographic changed, many affluent families began sending their children to private schools and other local public schools.  With them went the dollars and the leadership.    

Over the next 20 years, the school would see 15 principals come and go.  More than 85% of the students qualified for free or reduced lunch.  Gangs became more prominent and with that came drugs and violence in the community  – to the point that Camelback became a dangerous place by reputation.  Two employees from a local university, hired to work with staff and students, chose not to return after a terrible experience on their first site visit to Camelback.  

That was until Dr. Chad Gestson arrived. And, SVP mobilized. And, the superintendents of two school districts got on board.  And, other nonprofits took notice and participated.  After only two years Camelback High School is undergoing a remarkable transformation and SVP is playing a pivotal role.  

“When I arrived I was shocked to discover that half the students – 1,000 of the 2,000 students – didn’t use back packs,” says Dr. Gestson, “the students would carry their homework, when they had it, folded up in their back pocket.”

While a backpack seems a minor issue when compared to the dilemma that faced him at Camelback, Dr. Gestson is not one to ignore the details.  He set out to first change the climate and now he’s working on changing the culture.  He says, "The climate is the surface, the way students and adults act and feel on campus and the culture is changing what you believe – and that’s much harder."

Dr. Gestson, or "Dr. G" as many call him, cites a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundaton report on school drop out rates that says children, when asked why they quit school, say not because it’s too hard, they drop out because they are not connected.  That fact, combined with the research that indicates that 90% of the crime occurs between 3 – 6 pm Monday through Friday, has been a primary influence on Dr. Gestson’s leadership at Cambelback. 

“In most US schools, we encourage students to flee campus minutes after the final bell at 3 pm.  We push the kids out instead of making a place where they feel welcome, are encouraged, supported and connected.  We decided to mandate involvement and connectedness,” says Dr. G. This concept is at the core of the change at  Camelback.  Now campus is a lively place of learning from 7 am to 6 pm. 

“The biggest factor of our success at Cambelback is the remarkable assistance that SVP has provided,”  says Jeffery Smith, superintendent of the Balsz School District, “ SVP opens up doors which leads to other doors.”

For instance, when leadership realized that they were losing students due to poor front line customer service, Lead Partner Maurine Karabatsos, made a call to the person who conducts customer service training for the Ritz Carlton Hotels.  She readily agreed to conduct a half-day training for the school staff.  At first many were disgruntled, but staff warmed up and quality customer service is now highly valued.  

The climate has certainly changed at Camelback and the community is paying attention. 

And, it’s not about test scores.  “We believe in building excellent citizens,” says Dr. G, “We believe test scores will follow.”

What does the school attribute to its change? Disruptive leadership, is how Dr. G describes it.  When you are given the opportunity to get out of the box in every way, when you cultivate change agents, you can transform.

Dr. Kent Scribner, Superintendent of Phoenix Union High School District will tell you that there was a deliberate moving away from the deficit model of “blaming kids and parents and from minimizing failure to maximizing success.”  At the core of the transformation is operating the school like a business and not as a school system.

In his district of 25,000 students, 80% are Latino.  Dr. Scribner continues, “If you open Forbes Magazine and read what the primary skills sets top business executives are looking for you’ll see bi-lingual, bi-cultural, collaborative, resilience.  Those are our students at Camelback.” 

The 3 R’s Camelback follows are Rigor, Relevance and Relationships. If you visited this is what you’d see:

How could this happen at this school when so many schools across the nation are failing our children?  Dr. Gestson declared disruptive leadership.  “SVP has supported my efforts to stop at nothing, to get out of the box and address any obstacle,” he says.

Because of this, the entire community is rallying around this school and Camelback’s 2,000 students are poised for success.

Oh, and those two university employees who fled a few years back, they recently visited campus and awarded Camelback High School the Lead and Inspire Award for significant improvement in student achievement, rigorous course work and innovative programming. 

Kinsight Analytics Brings Intelligent Questions, Insightful Answers to SVP

Bratati Ghosh will tell you, “Those successful in business understand the strategic impact that well-applied analytics can bring to their business.   For example, the more you know about your customers, the more strategically and efficiently you can tailor your business processes to meet their needs.  As a former SVP partner, Ghosh understands the power of amplified giving and deep philanthropic engagement.  She continues,  “In the social sector – and with SVP – we believe analytics can help drive greater partner engagement and better outcomes.”  

     
Kinsight Analytics founders: Kalpana Sitaraman (left) and Bratati Gosh (right)

Ghosh and her business partner Kalpana Sitaraman are co-founders of Kinsight Analytics  and are applying their combined 30 years of research, marketing and analysis experience to unearth relevant and actionable insights for SVP partner recruitment strategies. 

With Kinsight Analytics’ generous help, SVP is expanding the scope of its bi-annual Partner Outcome Survey to better understand the profile, motivations, values and interests of SVP partners, including their broader philanthropic activity.  Extensive interviews were conducted with 12 Partners to gather qualitative data which will inform the quantitative survey distributed to all partners.   

These psychographic determinants and actionable insights driven from this exercise will be valuable as SVP builds its partner recruitment and marketing strategies to meet our strategic goal of 17 new SVPs in 5 years and 10% annual growth in partners by 2015.  

 “Working with SVP on this project is not only a strategic decision to build Kinsight, it’s a way for Kalpana and me to be a part of something bigger, with lasting impact.” 

Seeding SVP in Iran – a Land Fertile for SVP Engagement

By Todd Palcic, Managing Partner, Global Growth Advisors and Vice Chair at Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners

Iran?  Surprised?  That’s what most might believe when reading this title.  SVP is not yet in New York or Washington, DC, but there could be one in Iran?  Valid questions, but the seeds were indeed planted and the SVP concept received national news coverage in Iran.

Our media most often portrays Iran as a mono-color and rigid country of angry America-hating terrorists. I knew this wasn’t true but I needed to see the country myself. 
 
The most important part of my journey to Iran was the opportunity to give a talk on social entrepreneurship in front of an elite group of students and professors at the world-class University of Tehran (Kish International Campus.) Fortunately for me, it is the English-speaking campus built to encourage international students, ideas and engagement.

I presented my story of failed and successful entrepreneurial for-profit ventures and my transition to spending more time and energy towards non-profit social entrepreneurial engagement to about 150 students and professors.  I discussed how rather than using an exclusively top-down approach to social problems as done by the government and religious foundations, the country could also utilize the energies of the wealthy and retired with the young and socio-economically disadvantaged.   I spoke about our efforts in Pittsburgh at SVP and also other social-problem-solving ventures like car and bicycle sharing, so desperately needed in a country with severe traffic and pollution problems in its cities.
  
My lecture produced praise for my visit, interesting questions, some skepticism related to the aculturalization of using the internet to solve problems but no negative comments or feedback.  The school took quite a bit of risk – they had shut down all business classes for two hours to encourage their attendance.
 
Two days later, perhaps after viewing the video of the speech, Iran’s national news agency decided that the foreigner’s lecture on social entrepreneurship was not a bad idea after all but that advertising me as an American was…Regardless, I found new friends from the experience and plan to follow-up and grow the sprouts of a new SVP based in Tehran.

Framing SVP’s Global Brand Strategy

Excerpts  from Doing Good Better blog by Stacy Caldwell, Executive Director, Dallas SVP

Just back from a brand workshop with SVPI.  Our work day with 50 or so different partners and staffers from around the network representing at least 13 of our 26 member organizations focused mainly on word play.   Our facilitator Will Novy-Hildesley of Quicksilver Foundry began the day notifying everyone that, in the end, our brand promise would NOT be developed by consensus.

This is an interesting concept for a “passionate” group of SVP’ers who each have their own perspective and opinions on how our collection of Social Venture Partnerships should be represented to the world.  The good news:  there was clear consensus on the need for a global brand to which we all can pledge our allegiance.

In a fascinating journey of many many words on even more index cards, a few themes emerged which are an exciting departure from our familiar ways of communicating in our SVP world.  Here are a few:

• How can we “sprint from Acceptable to Brilliant?”  Acceptable is simply not enough.
• How do we shed our “Curse of Knowledge” and learn to share rich, not complex, stories instead?
• How will our brand inspire excitement? Because nothing happens until someone gets excited.
• How do we go beyond spreading a model of philanthropy and ignite a “movement” in philanthropy?
• Kill the Labels:  what does it mean for the world of SVP to do away with the jargon?  Do the labels distract more than inspire?

The final product is now in the hands of our capable facilitator to go back to the “foundry” to be forged. Consensus is futile. We will push through to a common brand with a variety of local “signals” (or manifestations) of that brand.  So tune in and stay tuned! 

Integrating Social Media – Learning from our AmeriCorps*VISTA Volunteers

by Becca Mandel,  AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader

Just like they always say, “You are what you tweet!” Not familiar with Twitter? Been wondering what makes a good Facebook status update? Want to integrate social media into your communications plan? Don’t care? You will eventually, because social media is here to stay!

Those are exactly the kind of questions that the SVP AmeriCorps*VISTA Team addressed in a workshop on April 13 as they move their network-wide social media project forward.  The project is a framework for SVPs to strengthen and support their access, development and utilization of social media.  Soon we will have an environmental scan; knowledge sharing event calendar, guidelines, tips and tools for SVP and our nonprofit recipients.

The team of 8 VISTA Members learned about trends in social media from SVP Arizona Partner, Park Howell, President of a sustainable advertising agency in Phoenix called Park&Co.  Keep your eyes peeled for the plan and new social media resources that can be utilized across the network!   

Park Howell, by the way, is a finalist for the Greater Phoenix Chamber’s IMPACT Awards.  His company is being recognized for making an impact through community involvement, company culture, innovation and response to adversity.

Your AmeriCorps*VISTA Team: (from left to right): Faith Ilochi (Dallas), Jackie Kajos (Tucson), Vina Nguyen (Silicon Valley), Nicoletta Fasano (Phoenix), VISTA Leader Becca Mandel, Aileen Blair (Denver), Jeannette Andre (Seattle),  Mary Bergeron (Rhode Island), and Jessica Place (Los Angeles)

SVPs Wecome New Staff 

Elizabeth Benedict, Communications Director
Elizabeth joined the SVPI team in March as Communications Director.  Deeply committed to philanthropy, she brings 27 years of nonprofit experience in fund development, marketing and communications.  She says, “I’ve worked for two investees for the past 7 years and know firsthand the power of the SVP/nonprofit relationship.  The talent and multi-year funding that SVP brings to an organization is transformational – like no other gift from a funder.  I’m delighted to work together to ensure that we not only amplify giving, but we are instrumental in taking the nonprofit sector to the next level.”

Prior to moving to Seattle 20 years ago, Elizabeth lived in the metro Washington, DC area, Detroit and Louisville, and spent more than 2 years in Senegal, West Africa while a Peace Corps volunteer.  She stays busy steering her 9 year old son towards making good choices and hits the running trail every chance she gets.

Aries Indenbaum, Program Assistant
Aries joined Cleveland SVP as program assistant while they were in the thick of planning their 10th anniversary celebration dinner last month – with much success already! Working off the momentum of their anniversary, CSVP is planning a bigBANG! conference to raise awareness of social innovation in the Cleveland area.

Aries graduated in 2009 from Oberlin College, where she was immediately hired as their Web Fellow and Blogger. With a degree in Writing and Politics, Aries manages events, communications and all things Salesforce.com-related at Cleveland SVP.

Outside of the office, Aries dances - swing, blues, contra, and belly dance - and does circus arts. She loves storytelling in all of its guises:  teaching classes and running workshops, working on radio shows, and writing.

Annette Heatherington crossed over from the corporate sector to nonprofit years ago and now leads SVP Toronto as Executive Director.  Her accomplishments include leading the sale of complex technology at Alcatel-Lucent valued from $210M to $250M as well as driving the development of a channel business for Nortel Networks in Western Canada. 

Most recently, Annette served as Director of Resource Development for  MicroSkills – an SVP Toronto investee where she  led a cross-functional team that organized and executed all fundraising development, including a sold-out Women’s Leadership Forum that promoted diversity and professional growth for women.  It was at that time that her relationship with SVP Toronto flourished – so much that she joined as a SVP Partner. 

Annette has lived in Toronto for the past 9 years with her husband Tim Lambie and her 10-year-old daughter Jessica. When she is not in the community working or volunteering, she spends her time travelling, cooking, skiing and playing outdoors. Someday you can read Annette’s cookbook she’s writing that highlights food culture from her travels.

Karen Whiteman now leads SVP Calgary as Executive Director.  Karen brings extensive work experience bridging the not-for-profit, corporate and education sectors.  Most recently Karen served as Executive Director for the Prostate Cancer Canada Network Calgary where she led the organization as its first Executive Director into the future with a strategic plan as well as garnering casino funding. Previously, Karen served as Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE) and as Program Manager at the Walk-In Closet.

Karen is an active participant in the nonprofit sector in Calgary:  she teaches nonprofit strategic management and leadership at the post-secondary level. She is involved at the board level in both her church and her children’s activities with the Young Canadians of the Calgary Stampede. She volunteered for the last ten years with Look Good, Feel Better, a cancer program. Karen has been a Community Impact Speaker for the United Way and was honoured with their Spirit of Gold Award for Diversity.  Karen brings a passion for education and philanthropy to SVP Calgary and is looking forward to further enhancing her skills in this position with SVP Calgary.
 
Karen is married to Mark and they have two children Anna, 19 and David 17. They also have an assortment of pets including two dogs, one cat and a parrot.

Get Engaged!

Social Impact Exchange invites funders to attend a two-day conference on June 15 & 16 in New York City.  The Social Impact Exchange 2011 Conference on Scaling Impact is for philanthropic individuals, families, family foundations and national funders interested in learning about innovative methods to support high-impact nonprofits that are growing.  The conference includes presentations from foundation CEOs and nonprofit leaders, as well as knowledge sessions and exclusive peer networking opportunities.  Social Impact Exchange is a national membership association dedicated to creating a growth capital marketplace to more efficiently fund the growth of proven, high-performing nonprofits.  Visit their their website or contact conference@growthphilanthropy.org for details. Discounted rate available for SVP partners.