A charitable funding initiative, modeled on the way Wall Street venture capitalists select and work with startup companies, is strengthening local nonprofits involved in education.
The project, called Venture Philanthropy Partners, comprises 29 business and technology leaders who invested more than $30 million six years ago to create VPP’s first investment fund. Since then, the fund has helped more than 53,000 children and young people, mainly in D.C., Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland.
But VPP is not just a grant-making group. Venture capitalists provide access to management skills and important networks in addition to money — and so does VPP.
“We seek to adopt the principles of private investment firms, and then apply them to the nonprofit sector,” said Carol Thompson Cole, VPP’s managing partner.
Like any Wall Street investor, VPP carefully handpicks those it seeks to help. The partnership began by studying some 3,000 educational groups in the region. From those, Cole said, her organization focused on just 30 for detailed review.
VPP looks for well-defined, existing projects that need not only funding, but management and organizational skills. It then offers the chosen groups money, expertise and personal contacts to advance.
“This is more than just writing a check; it’s about establishing a relationship as a trusted partner,” Cole said. “It’s about expertise, about staffing and infrastructure planning.”
The VPP group includes what experts call “deep bench” management consultants from a series of adviser-partners. For example, the management firm McKinsey and Co. offers long-term management and planning expertise; StrategicHire.com helps charities chart their staffing needs.
“They have provided us with strategic advice and high-level planning,” said Candice Tolliver, director of media relations for Friendship Public Charter Schools, the largest public charter school in D.C. VPP reviewed the school’s strategic goals and made suggestions for mechanisms, such as technology tools, that would help it achieve its plans.
“It didn’t take long [for VPP] to establish this level of trust; they saw that we had room to grow and needed greater focus,” Tolliver said.
Have information about area nonprofits? Contact Frank Sietzen at [email protected].
