Our Mission

We are committed to educating individuals to be well-informed, effective, and engaged philanthopists and to investing money and expertise into local nonprofits to strengthen their organizations and capacity to transform our community.

Our results

As a result of involvement with SVP, half of SVP Partners report increased giving. Our Partners find that they are giving more strategically and write fewer, larger checks. Most importantly, members feel their volunteering really makes a difference.

Dollars invested are multiplied to become more than 3 times the value in community impact.

How It Works

Social Venture Partners Boston combines grant making, strategic volunteerism, philanthropic education, and community building. This is our model of engaged philanthropy.

Pooled Resources

SVP Partners pool their resources for deeper impact than any one of us can hope to achieve on our own. These resources include donations, professional expertise, and networks, which are then leveraged to gain greater impact. Together, we select promising nonprofits poised for their next stage of development and impact for the community. We then work closely with them as our Investees.

Support to Promising Nonprofits

Successful Investees demonstrate the capacity and desire to focus on building their organizations and using SVP Boston resources to do so. Our investments include both unrestricted cash grants and skilled volunteers. Ours are multi-year investments.

Engaged Philanthropy -- Bringing Strategic Level Volunteer Skills

Our approach is based on a venture capital model. It requires a high level of involvement from both parties — the philanthropist and the nonprofit. We assess the organization to determine where help is most needed and surround its leaders with the right resources. At the end of each investment, both our Partners and our Investees have been transformed.

Developing Our Philanthropic Community

Our kind of investment is made more valuable with a strong and educated network of philanthropists. Many of us are new to philanthropy, and for those of us who are only familiar with writing checks, learning to make thoughtful investments in the community takes more work.

We have numerous provocative education events and engagement opportunities for Partners and prospective Partners, including:

• Hands-on Engagement -- working directly with our Investees on strategic decisions
• Education Forums -- small and large events where we explore issues that are highly relevant to our Investees, philanthropy, and the community
• Volunteer Gatherings -- our Partners come together and volunteer en mass with our Investees
• All Partners’ Meetings -- "annual shareholders’ meetings", of sorts, at which we conduct important SVP business, such as selecting new Investees 
• Social Events -- connecting, learning, and laughing with each other