The year 2010 was a significant turning point for SVP Portland. While the organization had been ‘doing good’ since its founding, then Executive Director Mark Holloway shared “I had a feeling in my gut we could be doing so much more.” Partner Larry Fox then described SVP’s community impact as “failing broadly, one success at a time.” It was time for a change. Read More »

To celebrate our 20th Anniversary, we bring you a series on the history of SVP Portland. This is part one, which starts at the very beginning. The SVP model found especially fertile ground with tech entrepreneurs. It’s no surprise then that Eli Lamb, who had recently retired from Intel Oregon, found his way to an SVP Seattle meeting and learned about their unique model for giving not just financially, but also with time and expertise. Read More »

Last month, in the wake of the mass shooting in the Asian Community of Atlanta, SVP Portland joined Oregon Asian Pacific Islander (API) Leaders in solidarity against Asian hate. The SVP team encourages you to read the full letter as part of our journey to continuously learn about racism and to support our collective work toward becoming an anti-racist organization. Read More »

On February 3rd, we held our Annual Partnership Meeting to kick off the year. Twenty-two Partners joined the informational session and Q&A via Zoom to celebrate the accomplishments of 2020 and hear about how we plan to build upon that momentum in 2021. As we celebrate 20 years of SVP Portland, we are excited and proud of our cumulative impact and evolution since our founding. Read More »

“High-quality pre-K has been linked, long-term, to less crime and fewer prisoners. The CPC [Child-Parent Centers] program has served over 100,000 three- and four-year-olds since 1967. Researchers followed a sample of participants up until age 28, and found that children who did not participate were 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime by age 18. By age 24, the people served by the CPC were 20 percent less likely to have served time in a jail or prison.” Read More »

In spite of the numerous hurdles presented to us in 2020, our Partnership met the challenges and delivered some record-breaking numbers. More volunteer hours than ever before. More leveraged dollars than ever before. It was an extraordinary year of impact and growth. We look back on 2020 with many mixed emotions: gratitude, anger, inspiration, grief, compassion. In the spirit of resilience and hope we look forward to continuing our journey together, as a partnership of changemakers, in 2021. Read More »

"I was very attracted to the combination of contributing both financially and with personal service. I was raised to believe that financial giving is not enough -- you should contribute both time and money, if you can. So, the SVP venture philanthropy model really fits with my core values." Read More »