Social Venture partners (SVP)  is a venture philanthropy organization  that creates  a community of social ventures or enterpries that hear more risk than others. Divided into chapters around the world, the Boulder, Colorado chapter has a mission to "maximize social impact by as • sisttitimz nonproi organizations in strengthening organizational capacity and sListz;i‘niii )1lity the creative use and leverage of our partners' skills and an resources.

Founded in 2000, Social Venture Partners Boulder County is donor-advised fund within the local community foundation. 42 The investor-donors, or "partners" who provide the funds, make a minimum three-year commitment of at least $5.000 per year, participate in a voting process to select which nonprofit to invest in each year, and volunteer their time and expertise to the funded nonprofits. The advantage for an individual to make a donation to SVP versus making a direct donation to the organization is that the money can be pooled together to create a big and fast impact, similar to venture capital. The donors also get to be dlr.\ -tl involved with grant recipients to ensure that funds are being used in the proper CC y manner and as efficiently as possible, creating results in terms of value and social impact.

The focus of SVP is funding the areas of youth development during out-of-school time, early childcare and eddcation, and strengthening educational and economic opportunities for Latinos. An example of this is the support of Grow-ing Gardens; an organization dedicated to cultivating community through gar-dening by teaching sustainable agriculture, leadership, entrepreneurial, and life skills to youth. SVP's support of Growing Gardens is directed towards Cultiva! Youth Project, a youth-operated organic market garden. Youth between the ages of I I and 20 plant and nurture a 2-acre garden, harvest the produce weekly to sell at the Boulder County Farmer's Market, and donate a portion of what is harvested to those in need in the local community. In 2006, SVP gave Growing Gardens $15,000, including $10,000 for general operating support of the Cultiva! Youth Project and $5,000 designated to support implementation of an earned income strategy. SVP partners have personally assisted in earned income strategy development and implementation, improving management systems and strategic Planning-

1. What are the advantages for a donor of participating in a venture philan-thropy organization versus traditional philanthropy?

2. What types of recipient organizations are best-suited to SVP-type funding? If all Philanthropy were to move to this model, would any nonprofits be hurt?

3. Is there any down side to a recipient organization taking a grant from a ven-ture philanthropy fund such as SVP?