Each year, we gather to learn updates about our social impact with our Grantee Partners, celebrate progress, openly discuss challenges, and understand ways to support. We had a great Grantee Partner Updates and Celebration on May 31st. Our event was a strong reminder of all the goodness happening in our communities, the inspiring and highly successful leadership of those with lived experiences and expertise, and the importance of collaboration and solidarity in our changemaking.
Here are some examples of what our outstanding community changemakers and leaders are proud about:
- Growing impact, bridging the higher ed and business sectors to expand economic opportunity and build a force of leaders as diverse as our future demands – Braven Bay Area
- Set up our own payroll system and are able to do HR things on our own – Code Tenderloin
- High success rate: 90-100% receive at least one 4 year college acceptance – College is Real
- Advancing key advocacy and legislation – e.g. Our Worker’s Rights Campaign, SB686, Domestic Worker Occupational Safety Act, SB227 Safety Net for All Workers (unemployment insurance for undocumented workers), campaign to defend the right to asylum – Mujeres Unidas y Activas
- Una Vida, a division within One Life, was created in June, 2022 to focus specifically on the underserved and underrepresented Latinx community of the greater San Mateo County area. Una Vida is being led by three outstanding women to help bring more Spanish speaking services at free and affordable rates to support the Lanix community. – One Life Counseling
- Our culture is known in the community to be really supportive and inclusive. We retained 100% of our key personnel – PAL Center
- We launched a fundraiser to respond to community needs during crisis: $200,000-300,000 was distributed to the community for flood assistance in January for; household assistance, loss of wages – Puente de la Costa Sur
- A very close relationship with the community with active listening to evolve our programs. We expanded relationships with both the Ravenswood School District, The Primary School, and the City of East Palo Alto (workforce dev). – StreetCode Academy
- City of San Jose adopted Affordable Housing Siting Policy – uses equity framework to incentivize affordable housing to be built throughout the city, correlates with areas that are low-income and don’t have as many resources – SV@Home
- Launching TeacherUp in January 2024 – project from Community Equity Collaborative as a way to bridge the gap in the early childhood educator workforce so that more families have quality options for their children, parents can get into the workforce, and childcare – Upward Scholars
These examples and the work and progress of our outstanding Grantee Partners make us very hopeful about our present and our future.
SV2’s Committee unanimously and enthusiastically confirmed the next round of unrestricted funding for all Grantee Partners entering Year 2 or Year 3 of their grant period with SV2: Braven Bay Area, Code Tenderloin, College is Real, Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), PAL Center (formerly known as Redwood City PAL), Puente de la Costa Sur, and StreetCode Academy. It was also very meaningful to hear updates from our Grantee Partners who are terming out of their grant period with SV2: One Life Counseling, SV@Home, and Upward Scholars. We wish them the best and know we’ll still be great friends!
SV2 highly recommends these organizations for further funding and support. Many of the leaders shared calls to action / ways we can support their organizations beyond-the-dollars. You can see these calls to action in this document. The document includes EIN numbers and links to donate if you’d like to do so!
Here are some quotes from our celebration that highlight the trust, partnership and friendship we strive to have with our Grantee Partners.
“My whole team comes from lived experience [can do the mission-driven work with our community very well, but very busy and newer to how to increase our organizational health]. I was blind and now I can see because of SV2. I can read and understand the organization’s finances, I can make the right strategic decisions…” – Donna Hilliard, Executive Director, Code Tenderloin
“One of the goals we’ve always had is to get our students onto a level playing field. To help us get there we asked our Partner Champions to connect us to other organizations whose experience would be helpful. Already, 30 of our students are participating in one such organization’s college readiness program. And our Partners also connected us with a number of resources to help us learn how AI will affect our students. They have been so quick to reply and make connections!” – Angelica Arriaga, Executive Director, College is Real
“I feel like I’m a kid leaving college, it’s a really emotional period for me. SV2 is an accelerator program for nonprofits. SV2 really provides the emotional support, the strategic support, and the brain power to move from real small to sky rocketing…” – Suzie Hughes, Executive Director, One Life Counseling
Each of our Grantee Partners is paired with 1-2 Partner Champions whom they select. These SV2 Partner Champions and our staff cultivate strong relationships, support our Grantee Partners, and connect them to our broader community as helpful. As we advance Trust-Based Philanthropy, we have a more relational check-in call with the Executive Directors and leaders, leading up to our Updates and Celebration meeting. This tends to be very insightful, meaningful, and actionable. We do not require a written grant report in order to release the next round of unrestricted funding, which can often be very burdensome for busy nonprofit leaders trying to focus on their actual mission-driven work.
Huge kudos to all of our Grantee Partners for their work (and teamwork!) and extraordinary impact. It has also been so nice to experience the growth of your relationships with your dedicated Partner Champions. Much gratitude for all you do, Partner Champions!
Much appreciation too for the continued skillful and smooth interpretation from our wonderful Interpreters via Upward Scholars: Brenda Graciano, Luis Romero, and Miguel Araque Contreras! SV2 strongly recommends working with Upward Scholars for interpretation, Spanish coaching, etc.! Learn more here.
Contact Amy Badiani, SV2 Director of Community Engagement, abadiani@sv2.org if you have any questions or want to learn more about how we advance equity and Trust-Based Philanthropy.