Our Commitments to Advancing Racial Equity

SVP Portland is committed to ensuring that all children have access to high-quality, culturally relevant early learning experiences. Data shows that race and ethnicity plays an outsized role in who has access, with children of color facing the biggest disadvantages. We have a unique role at SVP - as capacity builders and philanthropists - to engage in partnerships that will ensure better outcomes for our community’s children and families. Therefore, we commit to advancing racial and ethnic equity in the following ways:

We Commit to Invest

We strive to be exemplars in philanthropy by investing deeply in the people closest to the needs and solutions we seek to impact. We specifically commit a minimum of 67% of our Partnership talent hours and grant resources to organizations and collaborations that directly benefit children of color through culturally-specific and culturally-responsive early learning experiences.

We Commit to Learn 

To be skillful venture philanthropists and collaborators in the racial equity movement, we must develop a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of children and families and the barriers they face to accessing early learning opportunities. Our goal is that 100% of our staff, Board, and Partners working directly with Community Partners will engage in learning designed to better understand and promote racial equity through our mission.

We Commit to Become

We believe in the effectiveness of an organization with people of different races, ethnicities, cultures, languages, abilities, and experiences. We commit to transforming our culture to be rooted in inclusive and equitable ways of being. This includes, but is not limited to, using an equity filter to guide our decision making, reviewing our internal policies and practices, and diversifying our staff, Board, and Partnership to reflect the community we serve.

We Commit to Transparency

We commit to publishing our progress toward these commitments.

  1.  Includes African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, African Immigrant & Refugee, and Slavic. (https://www.coalitioncommunitiescolor.org/research-and-publications/cccunsettlingprofile)

  2. 67% of “priority population” in Multnomah County are children of color based on ECONorthwest calculations; U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2009-2013