What’s next for SVP? A new series
Staff, Partners and community at SVP Tucson recently decided to build upon a long-standing and successful Fast Pitch model to adapt it to the changing philanthropic context – one that acknowledges that our local SVPs can play a role in addressing historic inequities in philanthropy.
SVP Tucson CEO Ciara Garcia had this to share:
“Our Fast Pitch now serves organizations who focus on marginalized and under resourced communities and social justice. We are covering topics such as incarceration, gender inequality, education disparity, toxic masculinity and loss of indigenous identity in a way that:
- Highlights and supports Black, Indigenous, and People of Color leaders (7 of 10 participants);
- Drives resources to these organizations (we quadrupled the amount of $ we are distributing from $40k last year to $160k+ this year);
- Drives relationships for these orgs (we have follow up donor connection events for these leaders with community foundation donors); and so much more!”
This story – SVP Tucson evolving their Fast Pitch – embodies the constant learning and innovation necessary to practice engaged – and impact driven – philanthropy. This is just one of many stories I have heard in recent months of SVPs stepping up to meet the needs of our changing times.
For me, it’s an inspiring example of the power of networks – where evolutions can happen quickly at a local level and shared learnings can create an entire field of practice and new approaches. The evolution at SVP Tucson comes from and builds on work started in other SVP Affiliates like SVP Los Angeles, and other communities of color based philanthropic organizations. Together our network is answering what’s needed from philanthropy today, while leveraging the experience gathered over the past 20 years.
The truth is that like many network entities, SVP International’s updated collective strategy is partly about catching up to local context. Whether it’s SVP Tucson, Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Cleveland, Tokyo, or India (just to name a few), many SVPs have already begun to update your local work in response to the landscape and the need to have systems change analysis, an understanding of the structural inequities holding back our communities, and correlating impact.
This is the first in an email series over the coming days to share with you the insider look at where we’re going as a network, emerging opportunities for SVP International and Affiliates around the globe to have greater impact, and what that means for our work together in 2021.
Tomorrow we’ll share some of the sector level context, and history of iterative input from SVP Partners and staff that are driving our new collective strategies. Stay tuned.
Onward,
Sudha Nandagopal
CEO
SVP International
Part 2: How Philanthropic Trends Shape our Strategy
Part 3: Insider Look: Alignment for Collective Impact
