The Silicon Valley Program in Action
As we pass the midpoint of 2024, the Silicon Valley Program (SVP) is excited to reflect and share key highlights tied to our team’s 5 core functions:
- Grantmaking and Program Related Investments (PRI’s)
- Activation and Management of Social Purpose Real Estate
- Advancing Community and Partnership Engagement
- Building Monitor, Evaluation, and Learning Infrastructure
- Building our Team!
Strategic Grantmaking and Program-Related Investments
Our team’s commitment to advancing grants and PRI’s is well underway. Through September of 2024, we will have deployed funding to over 90 organizations. These funds have been allocated across our three core strategies—Deep-In-Place, Strengthening Communities, and Regional Agenda. Each grant reflects our dedication to driving impact through our strategic priorities.
Learn more about some of our and their work at the links below:
Deep-In-Place
- Generations United
- Redwood City Together Collective Impact
- San José State University Male Educators of Color Initiative
- ¡Sí Se Puede! Collective
Strengthening Communities
Regional Agenda
Activation and Management of Social Purpose Real Estate (SPRE)
The activation and management of our Social Purpose Real Estate (SPRE) portfolio, comprised of our Sobrato Center for Nonprofits (SCNP), continue to be a cornerstone of our work. We’ve made strides in increasing onsite activation with a 38% year-over-year increase in the number of events hosted across our SCNP sites where our community convened youth, tenants, and sector partners in supporting our local ecosystem. This uptick in activity underscores our commitment to fostering vibrant community hubs. Our team has officially moved program staff to our Palo Alto, San Jose, and Redwood Shores centers where we continue to build relationships and connections with our tenants.
Advancing Community and Partnership Engagement
Our efforts to align community partnerships around shared economic mobility outcomes have made headway, particularly in East and Downtown San Jose and Redwood City and North Fair Oaks. Our team continues to meet with grantees, funders, the private sector, and local municipalities across Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Southern Alameda County to align on impact goals, identify community needs, and strategize creative solutions to this region’s inequities using public-private partnerships.
We have 8 priority geographies that our team is continuing to build relationships in and understand the local nonprofit landscape. We heard directly from grantees that each community is different and requires nuanced approaches to supporting residents and organizations. Our team is excited to continue building with you.
Building Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Infrastructure
With leadership and partnership from John Matthew Sobrato, Director of Impact & Learning, San Jose State University, Stanford University, and a grantee review panel, the Silicon Valley team completed a thoughtful, participatory selection process to determine our long-term, third-party evaluation team, all aligned with our overall approach, values, and expected deliverables.
Learning for Action (LFA) will lead our efforts, “holding the whole” of the overall evaluation approach. In this role, LFA will coordinate partners, facilitate meetings, and manage iterations of the evaluation design and implementation. We will also have two organizations providing specialized support:
- Mosaic America will facilitate multicultural large-scale convenings, steward a community data platform that centers our diverse community, support information dissemination, and support participatory facilitation and data analysis.
- CORE will be responsible for related population data analysis, determining baselines for population-related outcomes, measuring changes in those outcomes over time, network mapping, and supporting impact reports.
Thank you to all of those who’ve been part of informing and co-creating this process with us through in-person convenings, our online webinars, or direct engagement with our team, especially as we embark on this journey for the first time as an organization.
This effort is enhancing our understanding of the communities we serve and ensuring that our goals are aligned with those of our grantees and institutional partners. Stay tuned in the coming months for more updates on this front!
Building the Team!
Lastly, we have officially hired and filled our team. In the last quarter, we welcomed three new staff members, Ben Neveras, Leticia Gonzalez-Ratchev, and René Casas, who bring invaluable experience to our work across the region. Below is a breakdown of our full team by strategy.
Application Guidelines
Grant proposals and the Sobrato Center for Nonprofits office space applications are extended by invitation only. We do not fund individuals, fundraising events or endowment campaigns, school-managed clubs, or medical research initiatives. Click here to submit an informal inquiry form and to share funding ideas and organizations working to catalyze economic mobility in Silicon Valley. Our team will reach out should there be strategy alignment.