Making A Different Difference

(From the September 2004 Newsletter)

When the new Kids Cafe opened this summer at the Wattles Boys and Girls Club, it represented the successul collaboration among numerous groups in the community, initiated and led by SVPP, to address child hunger. Hundreds more childen will be fed each day because of a project conceived and developed by our 2003 Investment Team, and now carried forward by our Kids Cafe Volunteer Team.

Social Venture Partners offers both financial resources and creative, skilled volunteer work like this at each of our investees. At the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington, for example, SVPP is helping to develop a marketing plan to increase the number of professional medical volunteers who staff the clinic. SVP has carried out significant IT work at Morrison Child and Family Services and at Children's Relief Nursery (formerly Portland Relief Nursery). At Metropolitan Family Service, as well as at CRN, SVP volunteers are working to develop satellite businesses that will offer sustainable funding to the programs we support.

Partners get involved also with "direct services", such as socializing with toddlers at CRN, or helping at the prescription window at the Free Clinic. It is offering both the opportunity for investing well and for hands-on involvment that makes SVP distinctive.