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SVCF Caps First Year with Zuni Center Seed Grant to Address Unemployment,   Bridge Digital Divide

December 28, 2001 -- SVCF Awards Seed Grant to Zuni Entrepreneurial Enterprises, Inc. (ZEE, Inc.): The Social Venture Capital Foundation today announced its seed money grant to Zuni Entrepreneurial Enterprises, Inc. (ZEE, Inc.), Zuni, New Mexico for research, planning, development, and marketing support for its proposal to create an Electronic Enterprise Empowerment [E³] Center.   Once it is fully funded and operative, the E³ Center will help train residents of the reservation with disabilities in computer skills, arrange for job placement, and assist with on-the-job coaching.   This grant is a first step toward addressing the 67% unemployment rate in the vicinity of the Zuni reservation.

SVCF notes with appreciation that the grant was made possible by public support from a new group known as Friends of the Zuni People. This group, organized by the SVCF, represents individual donors and families in eight states and the District of Columbia (Arizona, California, DC, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia).

In making this seed grant, SVCF's Board indicated that this is merely the first phase of its support for to ZEE, Inc.'s E³ Center proposal. In the next phase, SVCF and members of Friends of the Zuni People will assist in the refinement and marketing of that proposal to help ZEE win full support from larger foundations committed to empowering individuals with disabilities to provide for themselves and their families.

Kids on Hill Wins Enterprise Development Grant

December 13, 2001 -- SVCF Awards Second Grant to Kids on the Hill: Kids on the Hill, the Baltimore After School Neighborhood Arts Action program, today was awarded its second grant from SVCF, an Enterprise Development Grant of $7,000. The grant recognizes Kids on the Hill's success in developing a preliminary Mission-Related Enterprise Plan and in developing and test marketing its first product for sale. The purpose of this grant is to implement and refine the plan, support development of additional products, and further the preparation of the entrepreneurship curriculum for the children and youth of Reservoir Hill. In addition, the SVCF grant to Kids on the Hill includes a laptop computer to further support the organization's technological capacity to implement the plan. The laptop was donated by James R. Middlehurst. Thank you, Jim!

Gary Jonas and Ann Segal Join SVCF Board of Advisors

Autumn 2001 -- Gary Jonas, former Managing Partner, Venture Philanthropy Partners, Reston, VA; and former CEO and Board Member of several businesses and nonprofits, has agreed to join the SVCF Board of Advisors. In addition, we welcome Ann Segal. At various times in her career Ann has served as Senior Program Manager and Director of the Washington Office for Building National Capacity for Children, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation; held numerous positions in HHS Office of Planning and Evaluation (dealing with issues involving children, families, child care, child abuse and neglect, welfare, and AIDS); and founded and co-directed a nonprofit child care center. Thank you, Gary and Ann, and welcome.

Stand for Children Leadership Center

September 5, 2001 -- SVCF Awards Grant to Stand for Children Leadership Center: Today, Stand for Children Leadership Center, the leadership and training arm of Stand for Children, was awarded a grant by The Social Venture Capital Foundation. Stand for Children is the only nationwide membership group organizing and providing advocacy support services on behalf of children. The purpose of the grant is to support Stand's Leadership Center in meeting strategic planning, organizational development, and key personnel recruitment needs. SVCF has supplemented this grant with management consulting assistance to Stand's Leadership Center. This is the second grant made by SVCF; the first went to Kids on the Hill (Baltimore, MD). Click here for more information on the accomplishments and promise of Stand for Children.

Kids on the Hill

September 2001 -- Law Firm Agrees to Provide Pro Bono Assistance for Kids on the Hill Intellectual Property Protection, at SVCF Request: The Law Firm of Winston & Strawn, a Chicago-based national law firm, has agreed to provide free legal assistance to Kids on the Hill at the request of The Social Venture Capital Foundation. The firm will assist Kids on the Hill with its Arts Enterprise Initiative in ensuring intellectual property protection for the group's name, logo, and product lines. The Social Venture Capital Foundation would like to thank the partners of Winston & Strawn for their support of this worthy effort.

Summer-Fall 2001 -- SVCF Conducts Needs Staffing Assessment Study, Provides Strategic Planning Support for Kids on the Hill: In connection with its continuing support of Kids on the Hill, The Social Venture Capital Foundation has been requested to undertake an independent assessment of staffing needs of Kids on the Hill. The study began in mid-July, and a report to the Board of Directors of Kids on the Hill was issued in September. In addition, SVCF personnel facilitated a strategic planning session for the Board of Kids on the Hill. Development of a written strategic plan was one of the key recommendations of the SVCF Staffing Needs Assessment Study. (Note: SVCF gratefully acknowledges the valuable volunteer assistance provided in the Staffing Needs Assessment Study and in the strategic planning facilitation by a friend and colleague, the late Samuel B. McGavran. We miss you, Sam!)

March 2001--SVCF Awards First Grant to Kids on the Hill (Arts Action for Neighborhood Change): On March 24, 2001, the SVCF Board approved the foundation's first grant. The grant will go to Kids on the Hill, a Baltimore non-profit that provides an after school program of arts education, academic support and tutoring, mentoring, and family assistance. The grant will provide financial and consulting support to enable Kids on the Hill to develop an arts-based enterprise plan to help the group become more financially self-sustaining and to teach the youth. The grant approval indicated that additional support may be forthcoming from SVCF once a mission-related enterprise development plan is prepared and approved.

4-8-01 Press Release: Kids on the Hill Wins SVCF Enterprise Seed Grant

Kids SPEC (Kids Special Education Concerns)
July 2001--SVCF Solicits Volunteer Legal Assistance for Special Education Support Group: At the request of The Social Venture Capital Foundation, the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft has agreed to provide free legal assistance to a new nonprofit group devoted to promoting special education in the U.S. and Kenya. The new organization, Kids SPEC, will also sponsor exchanges between the two countries of relevant information and personnel with special education expertise. The Cadwalader law firm has agreed to help incorporate Kids SPEC in the U.S. and to obtain tax exempt status for this new special education foundation. Many thanks to Cadwalader attorneys for their assistance with this deserving project! _________________________________________________________________
An Innovative Proposal

Concern: Currently, federal laws ensure a "worker right to know" and "community right to know" about the risks of hazardous substances in the workplace or the environment (although actions by the government since Sept. 11, 2001, have reduced access to certain information that could be misused by terrorists). Public access to this information is required to be provided through on-line disclosure of specified occupational or environmental risk information. Consumers and patients, however, have no such broad guarantee of on-line access to information in government files about the health and safety of various medicines, vaccines, consumer products, medical service providers or other goods and services that they may buy.

Important information about health and safety risks of consumer products, medicines, or health treatments may also come to light during the discovery phase of personal injury or wrongful death lawsuits. Yet this information may be kept secret from the general public, the press, and regulators by court-sanction sealed settlements of those lawsuits. See Key Concerns: Sealed Settlements.

A possible solution: a new federal law might expand the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel all federal agencies to provide the public with on-line access to health and safety risk information (including summaries of incident reports, adverse reaction reports and product hazard notification) contained in federal government records. Exemptions such as those in the Freedom of Information Act could be provided to protect the confidentiality of appropriate portions of this information that are not necessary to protect the public's right to know (e.g., identities of individuals' personal medical records).   With this information available on-line, consumers and patients could make more informed choices, doctors could make better decisions on what medicines to prescribe, retailers could make more informed choices about what products to carry, and, when appropriate, public demands for product recalls could be initiated more quickly and effectively.

A second possible part of the solution: a set of national and state recommendations endorsing a "consumer and patient right to know" and encouraging federal and state limitations on court-sealed settlements. These limitations might be designed to ensure the public's right to know all pertinent information about health and safety risks that are disclosed in the course of personal injury or wrongful death lawsuits involving consumer products, drugs, or vaccines. This approach could still provide for protection of the identity of the injured individuals and the amount of any particular settlement.

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