College is Real (CIR) provides guidance and tools for “college-aspirational” students at Richmond’s three public high schools in order to have as many students as possible apply to, attend, and graduate from four-year colleges. CIR wants to change the lives of the students in the program so they can ultimately improve the lives of their families and change their communities.

Redwood City Police Activities League (PAL) joins police professionals and community members in a unified effort with a mission to provide school-age children and their families with access to academic support, life skills and personal development activities, with a focus on producing successful opportunities for underrepresented and underserved communities throughout Redwood City.

In our Equity in Education Grant Round, we had a “Chat with Youth” and other changemakers and leaders to learn more about what equity in education means, sourced organizations to consider based on community nominations, and engaged current Community Partners / Grantees in our organization shortlisting process. We selected these two deeply successful and growing organizations to each receive $125,000 in multi-year unrestricted funding, beyond-the-dollars support as helpful, and friendship!

More about the selected organizations: 

College is Real

Founded in 2005, College is Real (CIR) provides guidance and tools for “college-aspirational” students at Richmond’s three public high schools in order to have as many students as possible apply to, attend, and graduate from four-year colleges. CIR wants to change the lives of the students in the program so they can ultimately improve the lives of their families and change their communities.

CIR provides academic counseling, application assistance, college tours, community service, scholarships, test prep, tutoring, mentoring, summer bridge program, and career education. College is Real wants to change the lives of the students in the program so they can ultimately improve the lives of their families and change their communities.

College is Real serves 430+ students in the program, both male and female, predominantly LatinX and African American students, which is consistent with demographics of communities and schools they serve. Richmond has the lowest high school graduation rate and the highest poverty rate of any city in the Bay Area. They hope to grow to 500+ high school students by 2023 and are well on their way to that goal in spite of setbacks with COVID.

Angelica Arriaga, Executive Director, is a charismatic and focused leader who was born in Lynwood, California, raised in Riverside, California, and is the first in her family to attend and graduate from a four year university. Angie impressed our Partners with her passion and talented leadership in providing direct services to the students to ensure that they become the first in their families to go to college and how she is the students’ trusted academic / college advisor. 

Redwood City PAL

Founded in 1995, Redwood City Police Activities League (PAL) joins police professionals and community members in a unified effort with a mission to provide school-age children and their families with access to academic support, life skills and personal development activities, with a focus on producing successful opportunities for underrepresented and underserved communities throughout Redwood City.

PAL’s programs with kids and adults focus on community care and enrichment, healthy lifestyles, and city initiatives. This includes after-school and summer camp for youth ages 5-13, healthy lifestyles initiatives such as community sports and fitness classes, toy drives, a cadet program, and a tattoo removal program. 

PAL serves 400 school children annually, and has served 15,000 children and youth since its founding in 1995. 98% of their clients are Latinx. They provide programming on Zoom for busy families, and also at their facility in North Fair Oaks and at three schools in the Redwood City School District. 

Ivan Martinez, Executive Director, is a dynamic and collaborative leader who was born and raised in North Fair Oaks. He has deep ties and passion for the community, and impressed our Partners with his collaborative approach, equity commitment, and leadership not only in direct services to youth, but also in systems change work like fostering community dialogues with the police department.

More about our learning, community engagement, and grantmaking process:

In our Equity in Education Grant Round, we had a “Chat with Youth” and other leaders to learn more about what equity in education means, sourced organizations to consider based on community nominations, and engaged current Community Partners / Grantees in our organization shortlisting process. We selected these two deeply successful and growing organizations to each receive $125,000 in multi-year unrestricted funding, beyond-the-dollars support as helpful, and friendship!

Here are some of our key takeaways about equity in education principles and practices (and we keep learning and growing!):

• Access and Opportunity: 
• • Equal opportunity and equal access to learning and resources
  • A fair first chance
  • Every student can thrive and realize their full potential
  • Accepting that people have different paths in life
  • The chance to explore passions in nontraditional subjects and connect with the real world
  • Self advocacy

• School Culture:
  • Welcoming and belonging
  • Activate students to think about and change their systems (in a paid way)
  • Committed and dedicated teachers who care about student success and students as people 

• Community Support:
  • Social mobility
  • Prioritizing mental health
  • Having sufficient funding throughout schools and districts

• Anti-Racism, Diversity and Representation
  • Having knowledge of selfhood and ways in which our selfhood has been shaped by who we are as a nation
  • Being socially accepting and more inclusive

We also further applied our knowledge of key success factors in our education system:

1) Expanded Learning/OST
2) Social-Emotional Learning/Mental Health
3) Family/Parent Engagement
4) Teacher Development
5) Community Power Building/Policy Advocacy

Thanks to all who participated, and special kudos to Jennifer Min and Kelly Pope, Partner Co-Leaders of the Grant Round for their thoughtful re-design, community listening and grounding, and gracious facilitation, all as volunteers of this massive effort!

The 2022 Partner Survey Results are in! This survey is one way of understanding SV2’s impact on Partners and how we can continue to achieve our mission, learn, make positive social impact and cultivate community. Everyone can read more highlights. SV2 Partners can also read the full report. Thanks to all Partners who completed this survey!

Some highlights:

• Involvement with SV2 had a significant impact on Partner learning about community needs and solutions, advancing equitable practices in social impact, giving to social impact causes – funding and time, and effectiveness 
• Partners self-reported ~$1.1M in follow-on funding to organizations they learned about through SV2 
• Positive Partner experience, Net Promoter Score of 39.6 (over 0 is positive, over 50 is excellent)
• We connected with several well respected Community Leaders (nonprofits and funders) to inform Grant Round and Learning Session topics listed in the survey.
• Noted improvement opportunities include diversifying our membership, having more experiential learning opportunities, and adjusting the format of our events based on our “new normal” – e.g. hybrid events and in-person events as safe to do so.
• Top three requested Grant Round topics are Education Equity, Economic Inclusion, and Environment followed by Leadership Development (e.g. training and support for black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), youth, LGBTQ and other individuals from the community to amplify voice, power, and representation for economic and social justice and equity)
• Top three requested Learning Session topics are Get Proximate, Nonprofit Strategy Development, and Financial Diligence with an Equity Lens followed by Impact Investing

Community. By itself, it is already a powerful word. On Sunday, May 22, as the newest member of the SV2 team, I got to witness it first-hand.

More than 80 Bay Area locals passionate about social impact gathered in the Noe Valley backyard oasis jointly shared by SVP Partners Rose and David Bloomin and 10 of their friends in adjoining houses. Against the backdrop of colorful shades, Laura Weinbach entertained us with French jazz and serial entrepreneur and angel investor Tony Lam generously shared the cold brew Vietnamese coffee of one of his social ventures Omni. 

SV2 welcomed summer with its first big in-person social gathering since the pandemic, marking an exciting time for SV2’s collective leadership. There were many reasons to celebrate—from the launch of SV2’s new strategic plan focused on equity and power-sharing to the progress of grant recipients from years before. Following the warm words of welcome by hosts Rose Bloomin and SV2 CEO David Onek, SV2 Board Member Kwok Lau, Linda Prieto of Upward Scholars, and Diana Phuong of Braven shared the impact SV2 has had on their organizations and people. 

SV2 plans to host another Backyard Impact Social before fall, welcoming SV2 Partners, Board members, Community Partners (Grantees and Impact Investees), strategic allies, and friends to come together to create community. 

We can all see and feel vividly the effects of climate change in our own experiences: sea level rise, wildfires, heat, floods, drought, etc.  But what we don’t see, is their disproportionate impacts on our frontline communities who are far more exposed due to their location, decades of discrimination, limited resources, and ignored voices.

Our “Get Proximate Climate Justice” event, held in mid-March in East Palo Alto, provided us an invaluable perspective on these impacts.  We heard from 5 community-based organizations (CBOs) within San Mateo county who are responding urgently to their communities’ needs to mitigate and adapt to climate change, through  securing resources and advocacy. We found that these voices were powerful and impactful: Climate Resilient Communities, North Fair Oaks Community Alliance, Nuestra Casa, Rise South City, and Youth United for Community Action.

Key to making this event successful was our amazing co-lead, Thrive Alliance, a nonprofit that supports more than 200 CBOs throughout San Mateo.  Thrive knew the CBOs that were most active in climate justice and encouraged them to lead the design and implementation of this event.

This “Get Proximate Climate Justice” event, initiated by SV2 Partners Jennifer McFarlane and Paul Traina, featured two variations from SV2’s traditional approach.  First, we made it collaborative, inviting like-minded groups  such as SVCF, PACF, TPW and Toniic, as we can have a greater impact by working together. Second, our goal was to foster ongoing engagement in climate justice following the event, so we paired each CBO with an SV2 Partner to be their Champion at the event, and to encourage ongoing interest.  A huge thank you to Dennis Debroeck, Nancy Grove, Jon Goulden and Tony Stayer who volunteered alongside Paul and I for this undertaking.

The event took place in a new community building at Cooley Landing, EPA – a symbolic location as it had once been a toxic waste dump that was closed in 2007 with the help of YUCA, one of presenting CBOs, following years of EPA violations.  

From the start of the event, there was a palpable buzz from the about 15 community members who had gathered to make this event a success.  They were excited to engage with us, as well as to reconnect with each other again in person in the ‘defrosting’ Covid world.  

With about 45 in the room, Ever Rodriguez (ED of NFOCA) kicked off the event, talking about his own journey from feeling powerless as a day laborer, to empowerment when he first understood that immigrants could have a voice.  He got a degree at night and has felt empowered ever since.

Although each of the 5 CBOs had distinctive missions, they all had common themes: importance of empowerment through developing local leaders; the ongoing challenge of getting key decision makers to address their issues and their own strong bias to self-reliance, reflecting decades of discrimination and neglect by others.  

We found the presentations from each of the CBOs (see below) completely engrossing, and the 2 hours passed in a flash. We couldn’t wait to get to lunch where we had the chance to connect with each of the leaders; and became only further engrossed — our lunch lingered well past our scheduled end time!

We gained so many insights from this experience: a greater appreciation of “the quality of the organizations’ dedication and work”; “unique perspectives and issues across different communities”; and “the significance of trust”.  And perhaps, most importantly “climate justice is no longer abstract and now seems actionable”.

Next Steps:

We are encouraged with the level of interest from numerous  participants and hope to schedule an informational Zoom event soon, with 1-2 donor organizations that have recently funded some of the CBOs.  Stay tuned!

CBO and Presentations Summary

Nuestra Casa: Miriam Yupanqui leads this established organization which focused on education, leadership development and advocacy for the Latino community in/around EPA.  While long-time issues have been focused on housing, food security and clean water, Nuestra Casa has recently become a leader on issues of sea level rise, helping to change BCDC’s (SF Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission) Sea-Level Rise Plan to address the many historic inequities in frontline communities.  Nuestra Casa builds on its self-reliance through their funding of data on key concerns (eg water quality) as well as of community-generated solutions.

Youth United for Community Action: Founded in 1994, YUCA focused early on environmental justice issues, having helped to close the toxic site at Cooley Landing.  Led by Ofelia Bello, YUCA combines the power of youth, with an impressive horizontal power structure and a fierce focus on action ‘now’.  YUCA has been influential in getting their voices heard by organizations such as SFPUC, and in securing resources ‘now’, before it’s too late.  They have helped to increase both water security through rainwater barrels, and food security with local sustainable gardens.

Climate Resilient Communities: Founded by Violet Saena as a project of Acterra (a SV2 grantee), CRC’s focus is to educate CBOs about climate change so they can mobilize their own communities; engage decision makers; and to ‘turn up’ the volume to secure grants to fund resilience and mitigation.  Violet, a 20-year climate change veteran, is the glue and respected leader on ‘all things climate’. The CRC participates in over 20 climate focused  partnerships in the Bay Area including County Governments, NGOs and Stanford – with the goal of securing resources for others.

North Fair Oaks Community Alliance was recently established by Ever Rodriquez to increase that community’s resilience through securing grants and building local disaster resilience plans through ‘Block Action Teams’.   North Fair Oaks, as an incorporated area of San Mateo, is effectively left to its own devices in addressing climate issues such as heat and wildfire smoke.  Ever is aiming to change this.

Rise South City was founded very recently by Julio Garcia, with the goal of increasing the effectiveness of voices of South San Francisco communities at the ‘tables of power’ (such as SFPUC, BCDC, CalTrans and PG&E) on issues such as sea level rise, air quality, flooding and contamination.  Julio is just getting started by further educating these communities especially around the need for climate resilience. 

To end: we want to acknowledge the invaluable support of the whole SV2 team in making this happen: Amy Badiani, Jody Chang, Paru Desai and David Onek.

Written by Jennifer McFarlane, SV2 Partner, Climate Justice Initiative Co-Lead

We are thrilled to welcome Bonnie Lin to the SV2 staff team and community as our Director of Strategic Partnerships! Bonnie will lead our growth strategy, Partner recruitment, and marketing communications. Please feel free to reach out to Bonnie at blin@sv2.org to say hello. 

Bonnie has 23 years of experience as a global executive, investor, and advisor working with family offices, corporates, and governments on impact investing, venture capital, and ecosystem development in the US and Asia Pacific. Previously, Bonnie served as Vice President of Business Growth and Innovation for the Columbia River Economic Development Council and on the boards of the US District Export Council and Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition under the Obama Administration. She is currently a Board Trustee of The Fogarty Foundation.

A cancer survivor who grew up in a Buddhist monastery, Bonnie is led by a purpose to drive the responsible transfer of intergenerational wealth, knowledge, and power for the greater good, and is an advocate for education, entrepreneurship, and women in leadership. When she is not hiking, writing, doing yoga, or cooking for loved ones, she can be found mentoring entrepreneurs or facilitating change leadership anywhere in the world, from the Australian outback to Silicon Valley.

Bonnie is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and holds a BA in Sociology and International Politics from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.

This past February, we got together in-person with Code Tenderloin, one of our impactful and inspiring Community Partners. In a “Get Proximate” format, SV2 members connected with Code Tenderloin students and staff, participated in a walking tour led by Del Seymour, Founder, and known in the community as ‘Mayor of the Tenderloin’. We also had lunch together and did some resume reviews and mock interviews with students. This was a deeply motivating and encouraging experience. Special thanks to Justin DeMartra, Education Coordinator, for co-organizing this with SV2!

Founded in 2015, Code Tenderloin focuses on workforce development by addressing the digital divide and removing barriers — such as finances, legal, soft skills, childcare, transportation, and education —  that keep people from securing long-term employment. Based in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco, Code Tenderloin prepares participants to succeed in the workplace, and connects local businesses, major tech companies, and nonprofits with the right candidates for long-term job placement. 

From the very beginning of our time together, it was so encouraging to experience our Tenderloin neighbors and SV2 members naturally getting to know each other. A bunch of students and staff joined us on the walking tour with Del, and shared what they’re doing now (a whole range of things such as learning programming, working in tech, pursuing social work, working with local council members and more!), challenges they’re experiencing or overcoming, why they are proud about their community, their hopes, and aspirations. The walking tour included stops at the Black Lives Matter community mural, booming small businesses (such as Friscostocks sneaker store), a theatre and lounge where Code Tenderloin started and runs some classes, meeting Code Tenderloin alums now working in the community, and bumping into Shamann Walton, President of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. Of course, Del and Shamann know each other! 

As Del shared with us:

I spent 18 years being homeless, addicted to and selling drugs. I got my life together, I worked on bridging the gap between this community, other communities, and people coming to Tenderloin, so we could get to know each other better.

The government and media misaligned who we are and other communities are. There are people living two miles away who have no idea who we are.

We had a big scare 8 years ago, when the international tech industry decided to make the Tenderloin their new global home. People in the Tenderloin were terrified that the tech industry would take their homes. The tech industry was afraid that they would be robbed walking the streets. Neither of those things have ever happened. It has turned out to be a wonderful collaboration between those two populations.

As the Unofficial Mayor of the Tenderloin, I along with the Code Tenderloin team spend half of our day in the tech community, working to bridge the gap socially, economically, and emotionally while we dedicate the rest of our day in the Tenderloin community.

As we closed, Donna Hilliard, ED, shared ways to partner and get involved, including individual volunteering, group volunteering, tech visits, head shots, and mentorship. 

Upon reflecting on the experience, Meg Bannick, SV2 Partner shared:

“I am so glad I was able to visit Code Tenderloin with other SV2 Partners last month. Learning about the organization and its founder during the grant round was most certainly inspirational, yet could not compare to actually being there. Walking the Tenderloin neighborhood led reverently by Del with other staff adding their perspectives gave me an opportunity to appreciate the histories, tales and people calling it home. Practicing interviewing skills with clients gave me a greater understanding of their journeys and their drive to succeed. I expected to be impressed by the mission and the community, but I was blown away! I look forward to returning soon to “get engaged”, as Del calls it. Thank you, SV2, for the ability to “Get Proximate” through this experience and for impacting my personal view of philanthropy in such a meaningful way.”

We’re deeply grateful to have had this experience together, and look forward to more such opportunities to be in community together.

Code Tenderloin’s newly confirmed, ever caring, and experienced SV2 Lead Partners are Helen Jiang and JoAnne Tillemans.

Join ValuesAdvisor’s Kate Simpson and SV2 CEO David Onek for a two-session workshop on Values-Aligned Investing on May 12 and May 19. With a focus on interactive discussion and community building, the workshop will help you better align your investments with your values. You will be guided through a unique, personal reflection journey that incorporates guided meditations with group work and journal writing. The workshop is designed for all levels of expertise, from novice impact investors to experienced practitioners: all will uncover new learnings. The material in session 2 will build on the material from session 1, so we’re encouraging participants to attend both sessions for the fullest experience.

You will:

• Explore your money story, the origin of your relationship with money
• Identify your money mindset and limiting beliefs you may hold about money
• Determine what is deeply important to you, personally and in the broader world
• Learn the basics about the impact investing field: the categories of impact and impact examples within each asset class
• Craft a written “values” investment policy statement

Each session will include:

• Interactive discussions led by facilitating teachers Kate Simpson and David Onek
• Short guided meditations and journal prompt writing
• Discussion and reflection, in pairs and as a whole group
• Q&A
• Access to accompanying online workbook to support in-person sessions, offering additional research, guided meditations and writing prompts to enhance and support your learning experience.

If you’d like to attend, please RSVP here.

We’re pleased to introduce our newest Impact Investees, Change:WATER Labs, Sanivation, and Croptix. SV2 has made a $25,000 investment in each of these companies.

Change:WATER Labs and Sanivation both work on sanitation. The opportunity and its potential for positive impact are enormous. Poor sanitation is responsible for a wide range of problems including the spread of disease, diarrheal deaths, and water pollution. Women and girls are disproportionately impacted when toilets are not available because they risk physical violence or rape when meeting their needs in an open area, or perhaps could miss school during menstruation. Sanitation affects all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

4.2 billion people (61% of the population) live without a toilet that safely manages waste. Change:WATER Labs (CWL) offers a low tech, low capital expense toilet solution in locations where sewer/water access is not available. The iThrone is a waterless, odorless toilet that uses a patent-pending 3- layer membrane bag to remove water from the waste, reducing the volume by 6x – 10x. Because human waste is 95% water, the solution can save cost and effort of waste collection by evaporating the water. Each bag has a target use cycle of 3-4 weeks. If CWL is successful in building a profitable and scalable solution and is able to pull it off, it will be industry defining and will disrupt the sanitation markets and service models by proving out the economics for a more sustainable, healthier and cleaner sanitation system.

Sanivation designs, builds and operates waste collection and treatment facilities for secondary (non-sewered) cities in East Africa. The waste management market in East Africa alone is $2.6B with 90% of the waste going untreated. Only 23 of 87 utilities in Kenya have waste treatment facilities. Sanivation collects waste in four towns and has treatment facilities in three of them with the other under development. Sanivation combines the collected human waste with sawdust and agricultural waste to create briquettes. The briquettes are a cleaner fuel source than wood, and they also help to  prevent deforestation. Sales of the briquettes are offsetting 65% of Sanivation’s operating expense, and with scale they believe they can get to 100% offset. The large capital expense funding comes from institutions like the World Bank, African Development Bank and IFC.  

Croptix is a smart Ag subscription platform using data and machine learning analytics to help farmers detect and manage fatal diseases in permanent crops to save their farms. Croptix uses a patented handheld spectrophotometer which takes the spectral analysis of plant tissue and uses that to assess plant health and detect diseases. As the technique is probing the internal structure of the plant, it can detect minute changes, allowing for early intervention. This technique is first being applied to the detection of Huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening, which is potentially decimating to all varieties of citrus and currently has no treatment and no cost-effective and scalable early detection technology. Preliminary work has also shown the spectrophotometric imaging technique effective in assessing a number of other diseases in permanent crops such as apples, grapes, yuca, and olives. If there is a disease detected, the impact of this technology is tremendous. Entire orchards as well as neighboring orchards can be saved. This means saving the livelihoods of many farmers, not just for that year, but for several years, as Croptix is dealing with permanent crops.  Early detection also stops the unnecessary use of pesticides. This company’s work is related to SDG 12 ( Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 8 ( Decent work and Economic growth).

We are thrilled to welcome Daisy Manapsal to the SV2 staff team and community! Daisy joined the staff team in mid-February as SV2’s new Operations Associate, and she has hit the ground running. Many of you will already have seen Daisy at a Zoom meeting or received a thank you email from her for your SV2 partnership contribution. She has been busy learning SV2’s systems and participating in programming events to see our work in action. 

In her role, Daisy will oversee a myriad of operational systems and details, including interfacing with SV2’s bookkeeping and HR firm, processing Partner contributions, supporting program event logistics, and overseeing SV2’s data tracking and dashboards. She will also oversee our website and eNews communications. If you have a question about an operational detail or just want to say hello, she can be reached at dmanapsal@sv2.org.

Daisy brings a deep background in nonprofit work and a passion for improving operational systems that enable social impact. She started her nonprofit career as a Residential Counselor for youth in foster care. She continued to serve children and youth in the dependency system at Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, both as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer and as a staff member. As the Director of Learning at Child Advocates, she oversaw recruitment, pre-service training, and continuing education for CASA volunteers.

In her free time, Daisy enjoys traveling, learning photography, and spending time with friends and family. Daisy holds a B.S. in Biology from University of California, Irvine and a Masters in Public Health from Drexel University.

We are thrilled to share SV2’s new Strategic Plan with our extended community! The Strategic Plan both preserves the heart of SV2 and pushes us into new territory. We will be enhancing what makes SV2 unique while piloting new approaches, learning from these efforts, and refining and fine-tuning as needed. The Guiding Principles of the Plan include fostering a community of continuous learners, broadening the voices involved in our work, aligning giving and investing with personal values, working with our network to drive impact in the Bay Area, and centering equity in all that we do. Among the strategic highlights are empowering more Partner-led initiatives, expanding SV2’s impact investing work, and adding Grantees and community leaders to SV2’s Board and other decision-making tables.