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Monday, June 10, 2002

By Steve Levin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A visit to Pittsburgh by 100 or so self-described revolutionaries raised no alarms over the weekend.

For openers, how dangerous can a group be when its keynote speaker is Mr. Rogers -- Fred Rogers, that is.

And two, the revolution that the attendees at the second annual conference of Social Venture Partners International are fomenting is a radical change in the way grants are made to nonprofit organizations.

"The SVP mission is very revolutionary," said Sara Dial, executive director of the Arizona affiliate. "This group of people wants to be involved in philanthropy in a different way."

Forget the black tie soirees. This 5-year-old movement uses venture capital for venture philanthropy with the added twist of "partners," or investors, who get their boots muddy by actually working with the targeted nonprofit groups, called "investees." They not only write the checks but also provide expertise.

More than two dozen U.S. and Canadian cities have developed social venture partner groups; Pittsburgh organized one last year, the first city east of the Mississippi River to do so.

The two-day conference ends today.

Conference sessions on the top floor of Downtown's Regional Enterprise Tower were devoted to topics like V-teams, cultural competency, capacity building and partner recruitment. Participants discussed case studies and optimal levels of partner involvement.

There were representatives from the nation's first social venture partners group in Seattle and from Minnesota, where plans are under way to start one.

The idea, said Kim Wilson, executive director of Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners, is "partnering with innovative nonprofits that have unique solutions to community problems."

Partners are individuals who agree to donate a certain amount of money for at least two years -- in Pittsburgh, it's $3,000 annually; in Dallas, $5,000. Together, the partners choose an area of the community to focus on -- education, for example, or at-risk children -- and divide into teams that either work directly with the investee or with various committees within the social venture partner group.

Wilson said that generally, about 25 percent to 30 percent of the partners in a given affiliate are very involved, while about 50 percent give of their time sporadically and about 20 percent to 25 percent donate money but not time.

While foundations consider their annual grant decisions to be the high point of their work, the social venture partners see the initial investment as only a starting point. Although some of the newer affiliates, including Pittsburgh, do not have huge grant-making capacity yet, the carrot they hold out is tempting to nonprofit organizations.

Sanford Hoffman, a partner with the Arizona affiliate, said experience shows that as the investees improve their operational capabilities and efficiency, they're able to attract more funding from more sources.

"[Funding agencies] are looking at the result of their work vs. how many brochures they're handing out," he said.

Part of the conference here was to enable newer affiliates to learn from the more established groups about potential pitfalls and possible solutions. For instance, Dial said the Arizona affiliate is looking at questions of how to sustain its growing partnership, which is at 120 now with 11 investees.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has about 90 partners.

"We're still a very young organization trying to get our infrastructure together," Wilson said.

The Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners' first two investees were winnowed from 113 applicants. Both grants went to programs for at-risk children: $10,000 to Child Watch and $50,000 to KidsVoice.

With Child Watch, the group also provided a former high-tech executive and a longtime social welfare advocate to help the nonprofit agency develop a strategic plan.

"You always need an objective look and people who have been through strategic planning in a number of ways," said Judy Horgan, chairwoman of Child Watch, a safety net for area at-risk kids.

"Having a strategic plan with some very savvy people has been enormously helpful to us. It was right up our alley: to get people to think with us about how to create the best community for kids."