We are excited to welcome Grace Mah to the SV2 Board of Directors! 

Grace Mah has served on the Santa Clara County Board of Education since 2007. Her previous committee work includes the Head Start Policy Council, Joint Legislative Advisory Committee (JLAC), Budget Study Committee, and Policy Development Subcommittee. She also serves as Board President of Stevenson House, a low-income senior housing program in Palo Alto. Grace is co-founder of the Strong Start Coalition of Santa Clara County, dedicated to increasing access to early learning opportunities for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers in Santa Clara County. In addition, Grace has been a board member of the Palo Alto Family YMCA, a parent volunteer at Palo Alto public schools, and the initiator for a Mandarin immersion program in the Palo Alto Unified School District. Grace has 18 years of experience in the high-tech industry, including project management and sales experience. She has a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from the California Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and is currently pursuing a Public Leadership Credential from the Harvard Kennedy School. Grace, her husband and their two sons live in Palo Alto.

SV2’s Spring 2022 Education Grant Round will focus on approaches and organizations that are advancing equity in education, resulting in underrepresented and underestimated BIPOC students thriving and achieving their goals. 

SV2 Partners, please join us at an Open House on Zoom on Thursday, January 13 from 1-2pm to learn more about the Grant Round and opportunities for engagement. RSVP here. We also welcome Partners to help us identify the pool of nonprofits we will invite to join the Grant Round. Email Jody Chang at jchang@sv2.org if you can’t attend the Open House but want to join the research team.

Long-time power structures and systems, as well as the ongoing pandemic, have disproportionately affected families of color and low-income students, and have both revealed and intensified inequitable academic outcomes. Building on the community insights, research and learnings from last year’s Education Grant Round, we will learn about organizations advancing equity in interventions such as teacher development, belonging and inclusion in school culture, and family engagement. 

As part of SV2’s commitment to embedding an equity lens in our grantmaking practice, we are designing this Grant Round based on insights from a variety of community stakeholders, especially those close to the ground and with lived experience. Last year, a Partner research team conducted more than 20 interviews with a variety of educators, funders, researchers, and nonprofit leaders. Their insights and recommendations will continue to shape our approach to this Grant Round as well as the pool of nonprofit organizations we’ll consider. In addition, we are planning a Town Hall with youth served by current SV2 Grantee Community Partners, in which the research team will hear directly about education equity from youth with lived experience.

The Grant Round itself will kick off with a learning session in mid February — stay tuned for details and exact date. We will continue SV2’s application approach in which virtual “coffee chats” between small groups of Partners and nonprofit applicants will take the place of written grant applications. Partners will learn about the sector and conduct diligence on the organizations over the course of four meetings from February to May. 

The Grant Round is led by Partners Kelly Pope and Jennifer Min, and staff members Amy Badiani and Jody Chang. Meetings will be held on Tuesdays from 12:30pm-2:30pm via Zoom.

If you’d like to participate in the Grant Round, please join the Education Group on mySV2 in order to receive future communications and access to files. Please contact Jody Chang if you have questions about the Grant Round or trouble accessing mySV2.