What kind of people do you look for in the Investees you fund?
PSVP’s Investees are led by social entrepreneurs — innovative, passionate leaders with vision and ideas about effecting change and solving problems in the community, and creating more social value from their limited resources. Social Entrepreneurs are people who attempt to take innovative approaches to social and other issues, often with the use of traditional business skills applied in order to achieve their goals, and making creative use of limited resources to doggedly pursue their social mission!
What criteria does PSVP apply to choose their Investments?
PSVP looks at its potential social investments the same way venture capitalists do, focusing on leadership, bold ideas that have achieved small scale success, people with a vision to have a broader, growing impact on the community, and measures of their performance. Importantly, PSVP does not seek to impact or change a nonprofit’s social mission. Instead, PSVP brings some of the expertise and skills necessary to support, enhance and grow a nonprofit’s long-term capacity to achieve that mission.
How does PSVP provide management support and other forms of “Professional Expertise”?
One of the goals of PSVP is to mobilize the talents of our Partners. Through the direct involvement of our Partners, PSVP provides nonprofit Investees with skills in many areas. PSVP works collaboratively with our Investees to assess and fill as many needs as we can, but doesn’t and shouldn’t commit to meeting all needs. PSVP sees our Investees as a portfolio of investments, in which we want to help maximize the success of each of the organizations with which we work.