Latest News

From the Executive Director

There is excitement in the air at SV2! This month, the Environment, Health, International, and Teen grantmaking groups are all on the verge of making and presenting their grant decisions. And SV2’s Spring Meeting—a gathering of the full SV2 Partner and Grantee community—is right around the corner on May 30th, detail below.

We also have new additions to our website that I invite you to explore: resources from our recent Strategic Planning Workshop (including the podcast, slides, and handouts) and this story from Partner Nancy Yu about SV2 Kids.

Join me in congratulating SV2 Board member Karen Appleton for being named by Silicon Valley Business Journal as a 2013 Woman of Influence. Karen joins three other SV2 Board members—Wendy Lea, Diane Parnes, and Nancy Heinen—in having received this award. We're delighted with this recognition.

All the best,
Jen Ratay
SV2 Executive Director

Becoming a Great Board Member - Fri. 5/10

Are you interested in joining a board, but not sure how to get started? Or are you already on a board, and want to improve your effectiveness? Come learn from the governance expertise of four SV2 Partners. Diane Parnes (Strategic Philanthropy Advisor and former Executive Director of the Sobrato Family Foundation) will give us an overview of the basics. Panelists John Dawson, Amy Santullo, and Holly Depatie will draw on their personal experiences serving on the boards of D-Rev, Sustainable Conservation, The Art of Yoga Project, Spark, and Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula.

Friday May 10, 11:30am-1:30pm. RSVP now. 

SV2 Spring Meeting -
Thurs. 5/30

Please save the evening of Thursday, May 30th (6:00-8:30pm) for SV2’s fantastic Spring Meeting! This annual event always includes a great program, delicious food and drinks, and an opportunity to mingle with your fellow Partners and Grantees. The formal e-invitation will come out in the next few days.

- 6:00pm - Food, drinks, and mingling
- 7:30pm - Program
- At Box headquarters: 4440 El Camino Real Los Altos, CA 94022
- RSVP now

Q&A with our Grantee -
Alex Bernadotte of Beyond 12

First-year Grantee Beyond 12 is a rising star at the juncture of education and technology. 

Q: Tell us about some of the exciting awards and projects you’ve been working on lately.
A: Beyond 12 recently won $100K from Gates Foundation and Facebook’s “College Knowledge Challenge Grant” to develop CoachMe – a text message alert system that sends reminders to first-generation college students about different activities and deadlines that will support their success. Students will be able to share their successes, challenges and key lessons learned with their support network and peers. We’ll be launching this in September. I’m also grateful to have been named an Ashoka Fellow. Recently, I was privileged to do a TedX talk at Ashoka U called "Find Your Place in the Universe."

Q: What do you see as the most important contributions that coaches can make to first-year college students?
A: Our coaches are recent college grads, and they serve as tangible role models who look like our students, have similar backgrounds, and have excelled in college. They’re an example of what success looks like—translating college degrees into meaningful employment.

Q: Will the Common Core rollout affect how you do your work? If so, how?
A: We’re really, really excited about Common Core—it’s a great first step in aligning high school work to college readiness. It will further our goal of helping students get what they need to be college/career ready. We’re waiting to see what rollout options will look like for educators and educational institutions, and learn if there is a way we can help institutions work on long-term outcomes.

Q: With which universities and colleges does Beyond 12 collaborate?
A: Right now, we’re coaching kids at 180 different colleges and universities throughout the nation. In the Bay Area, we have formal partnerships with San Francisco City College and SFSU. The pilot we’re doing with them will wrap up in June. We’ll analyze lessons learned to create a strategy document, with a goal to partner with 20 additional Bay Area institutions.

Q: Any last words for SV2?
A: I wanted to give a special shout-out “thank you” to Partners who participated in our last advising meeting. We’re pursuing several of the ideas you brought forward and trying to figure out how to implement them.