Month: July 2018

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SV2 Fall Gathering 2018: Building Connections, Bridging Communities

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We welcome all SV2 community members and friends to join us for SV2’s Fall Gathering: Building Connections, Bridging Communities on Tuesday, October 2 in Palo Alto from 6:00pm – 8:30pm at the Mitchell Park Community Center. RSVP today!

Join us to learn about the work of three of our newest Grantees: Working Partnerships USA and California Youth Connection. We’ll hear how these community leaders are bridging the gap between underserved communities and resources throughout the Bay Area. We’ll also share what’s new at SV2 and save time to meet with friends while celebrating our vibrant community of SV2 Grantees, Impact Investees, Partners, and other social impact field leaders.

SV2’s Fall Gathering is an excellent opportunity to learn more about SV2 to see if becoming a Partner makes sense – please invite friends to join us as well.

Welcome Impact Investee, NeedsList!

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grantee international disaster nonprofitWe’re thrilled to introduce our newest Impact Investee, NeedsList! SV2 has made a $50,000 investment in NeedsList, which joins our portfolio as our eighth Impact Investee since 2015.

NeedsList is a platform solution creating a new way to match resources with communities in crisis to support local economies. With NeedsList, NGO workers are able to share the needs of their community via the platform. From there, individual and corporate donors can immediately meet those needs by purchasing goods from suppliers who are local to the NGO and by donating funds. NeedsList helps communities receive the resources they need from in-country suppliers to save time when needs are urgent and to build relationships between local suppliers and community service agencies.

Natasha Freidus founded NeedsList in 2016 in response to her experience as an aid worker coordinating resources to support Syrian refugees in France. Her co-founder Amanda Levinson, similarly realized that supply drives and other means of collecting resources were time-consuming and inefficient. Together, they built NeedsList to support local economies, foster relationships between NGO workers and suppliers, and make sure donors could meet community needs around the globe.

We are pleased to support NeedsList as they connect donors to communities and communities to resources. Join us in welcoming NeedsList to the SV2 community. For more information, please visit NeedsList at their website.

Impact Investing? Tell me more.

If you’re new to impact investing, learn more about how it works at SV2 by checking out our helpful overview.

Tech Nonprofits Grant Round Returns this Fall

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Back by popular demand, SV2 will offer a second Lightning Grant Round focused on tech nonprofits this fall! This Round was offered last March with an outstanding group of nonprofit applicant organizations, and we are hosting it again because of strong interest in the topic. SV2 Partners Dan Barritt and Rekha Pai will co-lead the Round, and we will again partner with Fast Forward, who will be nominating a new group of organizations from their portfolio. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about a high-quality group of nonprofits, all leveraging technology platforms or programs to address complex social challenges in our community. We encourage all interested Partners to participate and welcome those who participated last March to join us again, if interested, as we will be considering a new group of nonprofits.

This sounds amazing! Tell me how to sign up…

In-person meetings for this Lightning Grant Round will be in the evenings on Tuesday, October 30 and November 13 from 6:30 – 9:00pm at the Mitchell Park Community Center. The Round will kick-off in late September, before the first meeting, with diligence pre-work, which includes reading and optional conference calls with our funder allies.

To RSVP for this Lightning Grant Round, please RSVP here.

What is a Lightning Grant Round?

Lightning Grant Rounds are a shortened grantmaking experience, taking place over four to six weeks with only two in-person meetings. For the Lightning Rounds, SV2 collaborates with funder allies who nominate organizations from their own portfolios and share their diligence materials with us. Working with funder allies relieves the burden for nonprofit applicants and allows SV2 Partners to learn how our funder allies approach their work. For this Round, we’re delighted to work with Fast Forward, a tech nonprofit accelerator, who will nominate organizations from their portfolio. During Lightning Rounds, participating Partners have the opportunity to research six organizations in the sector, learn from funder allies about these organizations, hear presentations from the leaders of three finalist organizations, and collectively select a single Grantee. Lightning Round Grantees receive a one-year general operating support grant of up to $30,000, and participating Partners get to engage in a fantastic hands-on learning experience.

Welcoming New Staff Amy Badiani & Lucinda Brommersma!

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Welcome, Amy Badiani!

We are thrilled to welcome Amy Badiani to the SV2 staff team as Program Manager! Amy will be supporting SV2’s grantmaking, family philanthropy, and relationships with our Grantees and Impact Investees. Amy joins us from Ashoka, where her work has included the design and implementation of education, employment, and anti-corruption initiatives with youth. She also facilitated “Storytelling for Changemaking” initiatives, and produced courses with other social innovators around the world about Social Intrapreneurship for Innovation in Health. Amy graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.S. and M.S. in 2011 and 2012 respectively. In her free time, she enjoys solving challenges with her volunteer social impact team at Development Solutions Organization. In addition, you will find her dancing (she’s a Doonya dance fitness instructor), adventuring in nature, running and hiking, reading, discussing Harry Potter, cooking, and overall being present with loved ones. She’s very excited to learn, re-imagine, do, collaborate, and grow with the SV2 community.

Welcome, Lucinda Brommersma!

Please join us in welcoming Lucinda Brommersma as the new SV2 Director of Partner Engagement. Lucinda has a background in marketing at tech companies and is an active volunteer at her children’s schools. She is a board member of her local public school district’s education foundation, raising funds to augment services in schools. She is passionate about education, girls’ and women’s leadership, and women’s health issues. She and her family have also joined SV2 as Partners, and are looking forward to participating more deeply in local giving through the SV2 community.

There are many ways to get involved. See how.