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Friday, November 7th, 2008
Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
SVPI Conference Report
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008A couple of us Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners just got back from the 10th Annual Conference of the Social Venture Partners International Network in Cleveland. Along with Terry Beggy and me, fellow partners Jeff and Andrea Fitting, Greg and Susan Kaminski and Erica Brusselars represented Pittsburgh.
The biggest take aways for me:
- The Social Venture Model Works
- It’s having a measurable impact
- And the partnership continues to grow
How it Works
Giving partners time, talent and money toward strengthening the operational infrastructure of nonprofits over a long period of time, with clear measurable and agreed upon objectives in a very transparent fashion works. Our investees scored the work of SVP Partners 4.5 out of 5 and reported that the partners time was far more valuable than our money.
Measuring the Impact
In the 2007 SVPI report entitled, “Demonstrating Social Vetnure Partners’ Impact”, 72% of partners increased their annual giving because of SVP; 78% indicated that SVP has changed their giving strategies; and 69% credit SVP for increasing their community awareness.
Growth Continues
SVPI now has over 2,000 partners with consistent growth over the last several years. In fact, 2007 saw a 14% increase in partnership. Since 1997, SVPI network has contribute close to $27 million and has worked with more than 300 nonprofit organizations.
Lessons Learned
Here are some key lessons learned:
- things that were innovative and maybe controversial several years ago like associate partner levels and in-kind partner dues, have taken hold;
- More successful SVP’s seem to have a tighter more narrow focus with clearer way to measure impact
- The model is much more attractive to entrepreneurs (both real and in spirit)
- Movement to social media communications is very strong
- Dine arounds for for new partners with current partners are valuable
- Dallas is moving to implement an emeritus investee program — very cool.
All in all, great time with some high spirited, inspirational people committed to changing the world, one investment at a time!
John Denny
Chair
“One Man Can Make a Difference, And Everyman Should Try.”
Saturday, October 4th, 2008President John F. Kennedy once made this profound statement. Two of the featured speakers at this year’s Social Venture Partners International conference here in Cleveland are trying AND making a difference!
Yesterday, 200 million children in the world did not go to school. 800 million people could not read or write, 2/3rds of which are women and girls. John Wood, founder of Room to Read spoke to our group and shared his story of making a huge difference one book at a time. In just eight short years, after leaving a lucrative career at Microsoft he became a combination of Andrew Carnegie and Johnny Appleseed in the developing world. Room To Read has built 440 schools, 5,100 multi-lingual libraries and distributed 4.2 million children’s books in some of the poorest countries in the world. Room to Read has been described as combining “the heart of Mother Theresa with the scalability of Starbucks.”
John Wood starting “Making a Difference,” while hiking in Nepal when he met the headmaster of a small, overly-crowded one room school with more than 80 students, a library, but no books! The Headmaster said to John Wood upon his departure, perhaps next time you come this way, you will bring some books with you. And boy did he!
Man number two making a big difference who spoke to our group this morning is Stephen Lewis co-director of AIDS-Free World and former Special Envoy to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. No other crisis requires more advocacy and greater support than the global spread of AIDS in the developing world and specifically in Africa. 23 million of the 33 million people infected with AIDS lives in Africa. 65 to 70% of those with AIDS in Africa are young women and girls! This is a direct result of the unbelievable spread of brutal sexual violence which has become a strategy of war in the battle for resources in Africa. The raping and sexual mutilation of young girls and mothers not only destroys the individual but subjugates the entire village. Mr. Lewis is pictured between Mary Bright, SVPI Board President and Cleveland SVP Board VP, and John Denny.
The spread of AIDS has had another mind boggling consequence — 15 million orphans left behind. These orphans have now forced grandmothers who just buried their daughters to become mothers again!
Pretty powerful stuff!
John Denny
Chair
Greetings from Cleveland!
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
The SVP 2008 Conference kicked off last night at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. “Limited Capacity” is a pick-up band of rockers made up of partners from around the country who gave us an amazing performance and turned SVP-ers into dancing fools! Photos of John Denny, Greg and Susan Kaminski, Jeff and Andrea Fitting, Terry Beggy and Erica Brusselars on the dance floor are being held in a safe place to be used to urge them to renew their partnerships next year.
Cleveland’s SVP warmly welcomed partners from about 20 SVPs from as far away as Tokyo, Japan and we all joined with a rendition of Cleveland Rocks! More to come about the keynote and breakout sessions we are attending today.
Please comment below and tell us what you want us to blog about.
Inspired Philanthropy
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008I wanted to share with everyone the wonderful meeting I attended a few weeks ago hosted by the Women and Girls Foundation and PNC Bank - Inspired Philanthropy: Transforming Communities through Strategic Giving. Author and philanthropist Tracy Gary spoke eloquently about the role that everyone can play in making our community better - even with a small amount of money and even at young age. Her book “Inspired Philanthropy - Your Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy is a easy to read how-to guide that explains how you can align your values and passions with your personal giving.
I was particularly excited to hear that her work is expanding to youth giving and she has collaborated with others to develop a youth giving curriculum.
If you get a chance to pick up Gary’s book, look sharp for the section on Social Venture Partners on page 159.
Happy Reading!
Kathy Risko
Poverty Simulation
Friday, September 19th, 2008Join PSVP and the collegiate YMCA as we host a poverty simulation for Pitt Students and PSVP guests. This is the chance for you to introduce this experiential learning to you and your colleagues. The simulation will take place in the William Pitt Ballroom on the Pitt Campus. The Poverty Simulation will take place on Friday, November 14th in the late afternoon. Contact Terry@psvp.org for additional details.
Extreme Education - Police Ride Along Panel Discussion
Friday, September 19th, 2008Join PSVP and our guests on Thursday, September 25th at 7PM for a panel discussion moderated by Jill Greenwood, Police Reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Officer Matt White, Zone Four Police Station, Crime Analysis & Statistics.
The discussion will be hosted by Officer White at the Senior Citizen’s Center, at the corner of Louisa and Semple Streets in Oakland. The Panel is comprised of PSVP partners and guests: Jeff Hartings, Former Pittsburgh Steeler and Development Associate at Urban Impact, Joji Montelibano, Director RAND Corporation, and PSVP Partners Tessa Nicholson, Cynthia Kenderson, Erica Brusselars and Steve Robinson. Here about what they saw, experienced and felt about a shift with City of Pittsburgh Police officers as they traveled within their zone.
Welcome PSVP Posting Partners
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008O.K. all you Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners and friends of PSVP — this is my very first posting! How am I doing so far?
Tonight is PSVP’s signature event and unique part of our grantmaking, “Our Elevator Pitch” night. Our 3 nonprofit finalists in this grant cycle have been trained by PSVP Partners Tom Canfield and Tom Kubalis on how to give an elevator pitch and will do so infront of our full partnership and guests.
The elevator pitch is an important part of PSVP’s grant review process that is being wonderfully managed by partner Trish Levander. Trish and her team of partners have selected Strong Women Strong Girls; ACTION Housing; and Womansplace as our three finalists out of dozens of nonprofit applicants.
And kudos to PSVP intern Pat Vernallis for getting our blog up and running. PSVP is the first philanthropic organization in town and social Venture Partner Orginization to start an interactive weblog! Look for some live blogging from partners tonight at the elevator pitch.
Wew — that was really fun!
John Denny, Chair of PSVP
Elevator Pitch Session
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008Join us for this exciting siganture event of PSVP - an Elevator Pitch presentation by the semi-finalist momprofit organizations in our grant cycle.
The 3 Finalists Include : ACTION - Housing
StrongWomen StrongGirls
Womansplace
Coffee Talk “Light” #2
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008Coffee Talk – Light
Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners
July 15, 2008
Our Guests: Hideyuki Inoue, Founder SVP Tokyo and Yuki Okuda research at Keio University
We were extremely fortunate to receive a visit from Hide Inoue, the founder of Social Venture Partners Tokyo. Hide and his colleague Yuki Okuda are crossing the US doing research on Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship (think David Bornstein and Gramman Bank). We were also pleased to have with us Wendy Bennett, executive director of Japan-American Society of PA and Wendy’s colleague Kazuko Macher. Andy Ai joined us and Andy works for PNC and has been leading several significant regional initiatives, the most high profile is probably the annual Silkscreen Festival. Interesting PSVP/Japan connections that we didn’t know about: Bethany Davidson taught English in Tokyo for 4 years and is a member of the Japan-American Society. Erin Queen has worked in Japan and Southeast Asia for many years before getting married and having children.
We began the discussion with trying to learn about the most pressing social issues in Japan. Hide said that there’s almost an epidemic among young professional that they lose their personal goals when they go to work because there’s not time left for anything else. He related his experience with Anderson Consulting — he’d travel into the city, work a minimum of a 12 hour day and take a cab home because no trains ran that late. There was nothing else and young people want more. They know that employment isn’t guaranteed – much as the employment picture has changed in the US.
In 1998 a law was past that established nonprofit status. Before that, a lot of work got done, it was just done at a grass roots level. There’s been a big shift among younger generation to care more about society.
SVP Tokyo grew out of Hide’s work finding sustainable education for young social entrepreneurs — connecting potential social investors who may act as judges/mentors for a business plan competition. In Japan, there are not so many private foundations; however there are quite a lot of high net worth individuals who do make personal donations/contributions. Before WWII private philanthropists were socially minded. After WWII, the government took care of social needs. The SVP Tokyo group started with a small core of people, and they hosted monthly networking meetings that featured a speaker, typically on social enterprise and then networking and looking for ways to match up investors with young business entrepreneurs. This developed into an ecosystem of social entrepreneurs and supporters.
SVP Tokyo started in 2003. They made their first investment in 2005. They have 72 partners, each donating $1,000 per year. They have 5 Investees, they expect to bring on 3 new ones this year and they’ve graduated 2 Investees so far. They have more female partners than male partners, and large corporations are well represented.
John Denny asked us to think about a way to partner between Pittsburgh and Tokyo and use the support of the Japan-America Society. We’d focus around a common social problem, and see how we might get some sort of competition going between nonprofits in our two cities – in the vein of changemakers.net.