Why It Matters
We believe everyone has potential to do more
In 2017, when SVP San Antonio began our investment with Youth Code Jam (YCJ), we provided its leadership with a strategic planning process targeting several areas where we could plug in experts to help them grow their capacity and reach more students.
SVPSA Grants provided:
- Creation of data-gathering processes/reporting for impact measurements (2018)
- Salary for part-time executive assistant (2018-2019)
- Donor management software (2019 - 2020)
- Paid sponsorships of Catchafire skilled volunteer tool (2020-2023)
Expert volunteers provided:
- Executive Director coaching
- Website user experience updates
- Board training
- Government grant writing strategy
Youth Code Jam has great leadership and with extra help, they grew exponentially.
Impressive Growth in 2 years:
- Grew its operating budget from $127,000 in 2017 to over $500,000 in 2019
- Expanded beyond weekend events to statewide training and coding programs throughout Texas in 2020
- Went beyond Texas to a new nationwide online coding program
In 2 Years of active involvement, Youth Code Jam's Operations Budget Grew from $127,000 to more than $500,000
"Youth Code Jam could never have grown and become nationwide so quickly if it weren't for the emotional support and help provided by SVPSA, especially our lead partner, Billy Cox."
- Debi Pfitzenmaier, Retired Executive Director, Youth Code Jam
SVPSA's Catchafire portal
Skill Based Volunteers
Many of us want to give our skills to help - marketing executives, CEOs, Human Resources managers, and so on. Catchafire is an online matching system for this type of volunteer - and it is all no cost to San Antonio nonprofits. We fund their annual subscription to use it.
The return is mind-blowing.
In the 3 years of SVPSA's skills based virtual volunteer sponsorship, we collaborated with 8 additional local funders to provide this capacity building tool to 150 nonprofits in and around San Antonio. Together, we invested $365,000 in sponsorships and at the end of the 3rd year, nonprofits utilizing skilled volunteers have received $1,927,000 in value from pro-bono expert support. This is money they could put back into operations, keeping their staff and recovering from the pandemic.