Dr. Dobb's Journal June 2000
Urban legend or otherwise, the story usually goes something like this: The kid down the block heads off to college, launches a dot-com from his dorm room, drops out of school, sells the dot-com for a gazillion bucks, and begins buying cars, houses, and video games faster than his accountant can write checks. Then, whether he's looking for tax breaks or simply can't think of anything else to buy, our hero starts throwing buckets of cash at his accountant's favorite charities.
While this scenario may be typical, Paul Brainerd isn't. A newspaperman turned software developer, Brainerd founded Aldus Corporation, developed PageMaker, and almost single-handedly ignited the desktop-publishing revolution. After selling Aldus to Adobe for $525 million in 1994, he could have become an early-day dot-commer. Instead, Brainerd wanted to do more than just throw money at tax dodges. What he really wanted to do is make a difference -- and he has.
For years, Brainerd's dream had been to help make the environment more habitable for residents of the Pacific Northwest where he lived. Consequently, he created the Brainerd Foundation (http://www.brainerd.org/) in 1995, endowed it to the tune of about $40 or $50 million from the sale of Aldus, and charged it with the mission of building citizen support for environmental protection in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory. More specifically, the Foundation's charter was to support organizations working in the areas of endangered ecosystems, toxins and communities, and communications and capacity building.
Once the Foundation's wheels were turning, Brainerd turned his attention to his immediate community. While he knew that money could do a lot of good, Brainerd also realized that a few bucks coupled with time, effort, and commitment could do even more good. With that in mind, in 1997, Brainerd launched Social Venture Partners (http://www.svpseattle.org/), whose mission extended beyond environmental issues to "develop philanthropy and volunteerism to achieve positive social change." In short, SVP is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization dedicated to addressing children's and educational issues.
Using the venture capital approach as a model, SVP uses time, money, and expertise to create partnerships with nonprofit organizations. In doing so, SVP implements a model that might be called a "social IPO," in which philanthropic investments are made with the long-term goal of promoting self-sustainability. But it wasn't Brainerd's plan to just throw money at deserving organizations. Based perhaps on the successful Habitat for Humanity program, Brainerd built into SVP a "sweat equity" component in addition to money. Currently, nearly 250 Seattle residents, many who have made their millions at a young age in high tech, "invest" $5400 a year in the social venture capital pool. Additionally, about 70 percent of these "investors" participate on grant committees, working groups (to build SVP infrastructures), or volunteer teams that work directly with grant recipients. SVP also sponsors a variety of workshops, seminars, and resources for its Partners, addressing personal philanthropy, social entrepreneurism, and children's and education issues. Most of the volunteer time is spent in the areas of marketing and media, computer and web support, replication and expansion, hands-on mentoring and tutoring, fund and revenue development, and management and financial systems. And SVP investments can also be made using corporate matching funds and stock transfers. In the first two years of operation, SVP made grants of about $1 million to 13 organizations, including those providing youth tutoring, day-care, literacy, and the like. What all SVP recipients have in common is that they have long-term focus, are outcome-driven and preventative-based, and fit SVP's time and expertise.
According to all accounts, Brainerd's SVP projects have been a solid success and have spawned sister SVP groups in cities such as Austin, Texas (http://www.asvp.org/), and Phoenix, Arizona (http://www.svpaz.org/), that have the same focus, organizational structure, and goals as the Seattle parent. (If you're interested in building an SVP group in your area, a document describing the SVP model is available at http://www.svpseattle.org/.)
A lot of people -- the recipients who benefit directly from his sharing, the communities that grow stronger by his creativity, and the SVP investors whose lives are fuller and richer -- should thank Brainerd for his vision, efforts, and resources. He's done what many of us hope to do -- use technology to create a better world. To me, that's a no-Brainerd.
Jonathan Erickson
editor-in-chief
jerickson@ddj.com