Entrepreneurs bring funding, expertise to area non-profits

He’s young, tan, rich and has a high-tech vocabulary – the archetypal success story of the New Economy. But, like so many of his peers, Ross Shell, president of Tesser Inc., which specializes in strategic branding, new ventures and I-building, isn’t satisfied with making money and conquering the business world. He’s eager to help the community with more than just monetary donations.

“It’s easy for people in the business world to forget that everyone in the community isn’t doing as well, but businesspeople can have a significant impact on the community,” Shell says.

Shell is the perfect candidate for Social Venture Partners (SVP), a program being launched by the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. The project, modeled after SVP programs in Seattle, Austin, Texas and Phoenix, Ariz., links entrepreneurs to the non-profit community by applying a venture capital model to a partnership between the business and the non-profit.

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The entrepreneurs will commit to donating at least $5,000 a year for three years to SVP in order to become “partners.” According to the Community Foundation, the donation will be done per household so spouses and partners will be eligible for participation in SVP. The group also will distribute a minimum of $250,000 into the community over the next three years.

Partners will vote on issue areas (i.e. youth, homelessness, the environment, etc.) to focus their resources on. Like a venture capitalist firm, the partners will develop funding priorities, select “investments” (non-profit organizations) and organize volunteer teams to assist those groups. However, according to The Community Foundation, partners can choose to contribute only financially until they have more time to devote to SVP.

“SVP is a good idea because it helps to create culture of giving and asking – asking people who are doing well to give back,” Shell says.

Helping to create a culture of giving is one of the most important goals of the program, according to Co-Chair Amy Bachelor, a writer and community volunteer who became a partner along with her husband, Brad Feld, a venture capitalist with Softbank. “We’re a group of people who want to attract a larger group of people who don’t just want to write a check once a year, but want to get in the trenches.” And with the amount of successful entrepreneurs in the area, Boulder County is the perfect place to start an SVP program, she says.

Non-profits will be able to utilize partners’ expertise in areas including management consulting, accounting and budgeting, revenue-generating strategies, marketing and public relations, Web site and database development and replication or expansion.

According to Bachelor, these skills are important because in the non-profit world there are often “wonderful people running wonderful organizations that have weaknesses in their financial packages.” That can make it difficult to get financial backing and grants, she says. However, partners will bring much-needed marketing, advertising and financial skills to the non-profits.

“Organizations with strong strategic plans will be better able to serve and help their recipients,” Bachelor says.

And while Bachelor believes the skills and input of the partners will be extremely beneficial to Boulder County non-profits, she also emphasizes that it will be a collaborative effort, so the volunteers running the non-profits aren’t intimidated or annoyed. “We don’t want someone thinking ‘I’ve been running this organization for 15 years. Who are you to tell me how to run it?’ ” Bachelor says. Many non-profits, she added, have made it clear that they need help on strategic and technical issues.

According to Josie Heath, president of The Community Foundation, SVP “can be an ally” to non-profits “struggling to keep the door open.”

While Boulder’s SVP program is still in the planning stages, Shell is already working to keep those doors open. He was recruited by TJ Heyman, one of 16 partners officially on board with SVP, to help produce a Web site that will educate people on “how to give” to Boulder County non-profits. The planned site will have a categorical database of non-profits with advice on choosing an organization to give to, how much to give and how to go about doing so.

At a recent meeting for potential partners, ideas for how to make the site better already were flowing. With the kind of motivation, enthusiasm and innovation demonstrated at that preliminary meeting, it’s safe to say Boulder County’s non-profit world has some invaluable help coming its way.