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Wednesday, December 9th, 2015

Evaluating the Impacts of SVP: On Partners & Investees

By Jennie Arbogash & Caitlin Plaza

It’s well known that SVP Boulder County believes strong nonprofits deliver better results and offers a continuum of services to help organizations and leaders use excellent business practices.  Just as important, SVP believes educated and engaged givers have incredible impact for our community.  That’s why we invest energy and resources into supporting our Partners. We also believe in being a learning organization, continually assessing and transforming our programs and services for maximum impact.

This week, SVP is proud to release three reports highlighting successes, challenges, impacts, and examples of our work:

Case Study of Boulder County CareConnect and SVP Boulder County
The three-year (2012–2015) partnership between Boulder County CareConnect (BCCC) and Social Venture Partners Boulder County (SVP) endured some challenges that were, arguably, as hard or harder than any SVP partnership has faced. While the work didn’t go exactly as planned each step of the way, SVP and BCCC worked past the adversity to help BCCC turn the corner into a new and exciting chapter. Learn how 22 SVP Partners gave almost 1,500 consulting hours and make it possible, in this case study.

Report on Impact in Capacity Building 2015

In SVP we throw around ideas like ‘leverage’ and ‘pooling resources’ on a regular basis. An example of what that actually means is how in the last investment year, the value of SVP’s consulting hours was five times the value of the cash grants we gave to nonprofits; value-added = 5X!  To assess our capacity building impact (i.e. developing core skills, management practice, strategies and systems), SVP has prioritized (i.) Investee satisfaction, (ii.) value added by SVP Partners, and (iii.) impact of capacity gains on program effectiveness.  Take a look at this year’s Report on Impact in Capacity Building to see where SVP excelled, and what we learned about our areas for improvement.

Report on Impact in Philanthropy Development 2015

Every other year, we join the SVP Network in compiling data from a Philanthropy Development Outcomes survey. SVP Boulder County received responses from 44% of our Partner households/businesses. Even with our expanded nonprofit strengthening offerings, it’s wonderful to see how many Partners are still greatly involved with Investees. ~85% of survey respondents volunteered with an Investee since joining SVP, highlighting the importance of our Investees and the work we do alongside them. Meanwhile, the types of SVP involvement that had the most impact on changes in strategic giving included serving on an internal SVP Committee/Board, or serving on the Investee Selection Committee (formerly PGC). Learn more in the Philanthropy Development Outcomes Report for SVP Boulder County.

Partners are the indispensable link between SVP and a stronger Boulder County. Share your story about how being a Partner has impacted you and your ability to give back in a blog post by contacting Olga.

Nonprofit Spotlight: The Arts Hub

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SVP Partner Profile: Jenny Desmond

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