Portfolio
The Heart of our Work
At the core of SVP Boston is our Portfolio, our grantees with whom we work to build capacity, increase impact, and so much more.
About Fresh (Fall 2019 Grantee)
With About Fresh, we have continued working in an advisory role, acting as a thought partner around the complicated issues they are facing.
During 2022, the main focus of our team's work with About Fresh was around thinking through its alternatives to obtain necessary financial resources to fund its future growth plans for its Fresh Connect food prescription debit card. Specific focuses were:
Helping leadership to evaluate alternatives given the changing financial market environment
Research the landscape for public insurance plans’ coverage of Food is Medicine programs.
With such a revolutionary service in development, there have been plenty of novel problems to tackle.
"I have really enjoyed working with the About Fresh team to help them develop their pathbreaking service. As a health economist in my day job, I truly appreciate how much of an individual’s health status is determined not by the medical care they receive, but rather by their access to health food, sustainable housing and other basic needs. About Fresh is bending the curve in creating a mechanism to allow health care providers to make food access become part of the basic health care services they provide."
Monica Noether, Lead Partner of our About Fresh Team
Programmatic Successes
Fresh Truck:
$1.7 million sold from Fresh Truck
50,000+ fresh food purchased in person
12,000+ fresh food purchased online
23 weekly markets
756 Volunteers
Fresh Connect:
3,885 Fresh Connect cardholders enrolled
45,000+ Fresh Connect transactions
$1.6 million of healthy food purchased using Fresh Connect funds
Fresh Connect provides a "prescription" to fresh food in partnership with healthcare providers and grocery stores
Bikes Not Bombs (Fall 2020 Grantee)
Our second year of work with Bikes Not Bombs has seen the completion of some key, long term projects, as well as the continuation and beginning of others.
Our team has assisted with BNB's technology support, helping to develop systems for two critical areas of BnB's work:
An inventory management system to track the intake of donated bicycles and bicycle parts, as well as the allocation of these donated bikes to BnB’s bike shop, education and international partner programs.
The establishment of processes and implementation of a technology platform for the digital collection and management of constituent data.
Team Members have worked with Bikes Not Bombs on issues around board governance, including:
Development of a sustainable pipeline of Board leadership.
working with the Governance Committee on a 2023 workplan to create an advisory committee, develop a board survey, and and enhance committee education.
Team support extended to a number of other areas, such as:
Compensation Analysis for Bikes Not Bombs' Executive Director.
Assistance around the development and launch of a DEI Survey.
Launch of a marketing planning process to help the Bike Shop increase revenue.
"BnB has reached the next level of organizational growth and impact. A significant increase in funding is challenging the bandwidth of BnB’s senior leadership team. A focus on staffing and systems, especially key management infrastructure, will free up senior staff to manage BnB’s growth and plan for the future. The SVP team working for the past two years with BnB has been engaged in meaningful projects that have enhanced the organization's runway for the future."
Marva Serotkin, Co-Lead Partner of the Bikes Not Bombs team
BNB's 2022 Bike-A-Thon saw 120 volunteers and 529 riders get involved, collectively riding over 26,000 miles!
Bikes Not Bombs, by the numbers
In 2022, 117 people were engaged in Bike School programs, marking a 64% increase from 2021.
45 youth employed as paid apprentices for their training program, up 63% since 2021
Great success with their Bike Shop, including:
Overhauled over 330 bikes for sale
Matched over 150 bikes to children and adults experiencing economic hardship
Allocated 250 bikes for learn-and-earn Bike School programs
Recycled tons and tons of bikes, diverting them from the global wastestream
Shipped 481 bikes to their partner Learn, Work, Develop (LWD) in Rwanda
Breaktime (Fall 2021 Grantee)
Selected from our Fall 2021 Cycle, we we thrilled to begin our engagement with Breaktime in Spring of 2022.
Financial Modeling
Our initial work with Breaktime has focused around developing a Financial Model for the organization, to help inform their expansion efforts as they look to extend beyond Greater Boston. This model has been created and is now in the implementation process.
Documentation Support
Additional workstreams have now begun, primarily focused on documentation of standard operating procedures to help further support Breaktime's expansion, providing an operation framework for new locations.
“Being able to help Breaktime navigate these new waters is an incredible opportunity, and one that I am excited to take on over the next three years.”
Navanita Nathan, Lead Partner of our Breaktime Grantee Team
Breaktime's 2022
Breaktime extended their Stable Orbit program from 9 months to 3 Years, ensuring their alumni are supported all the way to housing security
The creation of a mobile Launchpad team has allowed them to begin their statewide expansion in the Metro North region, extending their reach
Impact Results
84% of Associates who participated in 1 year of Stable Orbit are engaged in a combination of work and/or school
70% of Associates who participated in 1 year of Stable Orbit are in stable or medium-term Housing
$653- average savings after completing Liftoff
74 point increase in credit score after the program (average)
Breaktime's first billboard, evidence of their expansion in action!
EDEN (Spring 2022 E-Track Grantee)
Our newest E-Track grantee, we began our work with EDEN in early Fall 2022, and have already seen great progress in the first few months of work.
Since beginning our work in September, our team has been focusing on two primary streams of work.
Helping to improve and streamline EDEN's grant writing process
Helping inform a website remodel for EDEN
Both of these workstreams have been done in concert with Staff and Board from EDEN, and have done so with storytelling in mind, helping EDEN to show the human side of their work while being mindful of the sensitivites around homelessness and those experiencing it.
"We began to engage with SVP’s newest grantee, EDEN, in the late fall of 2022. Two priorities were identified- helping EDEN’s leader, Jehu Leconte, improve the website presentation and messaging; secondly, to assist them with their grant writing and efforts to expand their base of financial support. These initiatives will be very active through the first half of 2023."
Joel Rosen and Jeff Singer, Lead Partners of our EDEN team
The EDEN team at their Grand Opening in September, 2022!
In 2022, EDEN...
Held the Grand Opening for their new office in Roslindale, MA
Served 96 single mothers and children
Raised a new high of $300k, helping to further grow the organization
Have undergone an alignment and improvement of their Marketing and Communications.
Leadership Brainery (Spring 2021 Grantee)
2022 has been an incredible year for our partnership with Leadership Brainery, marking the first extension of an E-Track engagement into it's second year.
Communications
In early 2022, the team worked with Leadership Brainery to develop and implement a new Communications Plan, including consultation with a communications coach.
Fundraising
Team members supported Leadership Brainery’s development initiatives by delivering a Major Donor Strategy as well as recommendations to diversify fundraising to include grants and foundations.
Impact Measurement
SVP delivered a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Dashboard to help define, measure and monitor key success measures, which will be used in donor communications.
Strategic Planning
In September 2022, the team launched a strategic planning process with Leadership Brainery, which began by interviewing 27 stakeholders and performing competitive analysis. Results of Phase 1 were delivered in December 2022 to LB leadership and board, and have informed decisions on staffing, service offerings, technology, board effectiveness, geographic focus and strategic alliances.
“Leadership Brainery continues to deliver meaningful impact on their mission of providing equitable access to graduate education for under-represented students, while also raising awareness of this critical need in a compelling way. Our SVP team has done an outstanding job of consulting with Leadership Brainery in a collaborative manner and helping to drive growth across multiple aspects of LB’s business.”
Terrie Perella, lead partner of our Leadership Brainery Team
In 2022...
Our communications plan helped to prepare Leadership Brainery for participation in a CNN documentary, released in Spring 2023.
The Major Donor Strategy has helped Leadership Brainery in a number of areas, including a staff expansion of additional development professionals, as well as the hosting of a successful Giving Tuesday event.
Leadership Brainery's Impact Summit saw over 100 prospective graduate students meet with recruiters from LB partner schools.
Students at the 2022 Impact Summit!
Strategies For Youth (Spring 2020 Grantee)
Entering their third year with SVP in late 2022, our engagement with Strategies For Youth has continued to be a productive and impactful partnership.
SFY's Youth Services App assists officers with alternatives to arrest
App Support
In 2022, the bulk of our team's focus was around the development and launch of Strategies For Youth's Youth Services app, which is an app designed to live on officer's phones, and provide alternative resources to arrest in order to improve interactions between officers and youth.
Strategic Planning
Our team continued their Strategic Planning work in the earlier parts of the year, in order to help focus the mission and vision statements of the organization.
Financial Sustainability
Team members have assisted with Financial Planning for Strategies For Youth, focusing on long-term sustainability for the organization.
"SFY is an amazing organization who provides meaningful assistance to police, youth and communities across the country, without taking sides, being political or polarizing constituents - not easy to do. Their ED, Lisa Thurau, is a vibrant and passionate leader who advocates for game-changing policy reform to help all sides to come together. Their compelling proven training has made sustainable improvement in the mindset of the police who have taken it and educated youth in a profound way regarding their rights and the consequences of their words and actions - thereby building mutual empathy and respect. Their newly developed and innovative Youth Services App has been received very well by early adopters and promises to be an extremely helpful tool and resource to assist police in helping vulnerable youth to know about and leverage local community social services"
Dan Brownell, Lead Partner of our Strategies for Youth Team
PTB Training provides insight to officers on how to better inteact with youth.
Strategies for Youth had an incredible impact in 2022, including:
Youth Engagement
844 youth participating in SFY's Juvenile Justice Jeopardy, with 80% of participants reporting that more than half of the included information was new to them
Law Enforcement Training
SFY conducted 19 Policing the Teen Brain trainings, serving over 279 patrol officers and 135 school resource officers.
App Release
SFY's Youth Services App released, and is now in use by hundreds of officers in multiple counties across 2 states, with plans to expand in 2023.
And more, including multiple report releases and policy actions across the nation.
Projects
Alongside our Grantees, we have completed a number of focused projects with the finalists of our grant cycles. Though not selected as grantees, making it to our finalist round indicates an organizational strength that we believe deserves recognition. Accordingly, we offer our grant cycle finalists a focused, deliverable-based project in recognition of the work they put in to applying to SVP. Read more below about these engagements!
Early in 2022, we completed our Strategic Planning Project with Boston Partners in Education! The focus of the project was the development of strategic plan for Boston Partners in Education . This was accomplished first through the examination of key stakeholder perspectives and the creation of “personas”. The team’s findings through their initial process were then complied, and used to identify points of focus for the organization. These were used to present a set of Strategic Initiatives to Boston Partners in Education as their final deliverable.
A finalist in our Spring 2022 E-Track Grant Cycle, we worked with GenUnity on a number of HR-focused issues, discussing their organizational structure, key hiring needs, staffing strategies to optimize their hiring and selection processes. Additionally, they focused extensively on best practices and scaled to their organizational size the optimal onboarding strategy as well as grounded tactical steps to engage, retain and develop their newest employees.
Runner-Up in our Spring 2021 E-Track Grant Cycle, our project with He Is Me took a two-pronged approach, with advising being provided to He Is Me Executive Director Robert Hendricks on fund development, particularly around grants and foundations strategy, as well as executive coaching being provided to Robert around team management, leadership issues, and hiring practices.
A finalist in our Fall 2021 Investment Cycle, our project with Root focused on strategic planning. Having just completed their previous 5-Year plan, and on the heels of a leadership transition, we helped Root prepare for an upcoming strategic planning process by assisting with a review of what areas needed focus in the process, as well as providing materials to assist and brainstorming support.