SIRV

Sav­ing, Invest­ing & Return­ing Value

Sav­ing, Invest­ing & Return­ing Value (SIRV) builds upon SEO’s mis­sion of prepar­ing young peo­ple of color to lead, not just in their careers, but equally in their com­mu­ni­ties.  Through sem­i­nars, donor-advised funds, and related pro­gram­ming, the SIRV ini­tia­tive helps SEO alumni and other pro­fes­sion­als of color explore a broad range of strate­gic phil­an­thropic activ­ity.  Par­tic­i­pants come to under­stand and seek out roles they can play through vol­un­teer­ing and non­profit board ser­vice, as well as mon­e­tary phil­an­thropy.  At the same time, SIRV rec­og­nizes that many peo­ple need to learn meth­ods to sta­bi­lize and man­age their indi­vid­ual finances in order to engage in sus­tained giv­ing.  There­fore, SIRV’s com­pre­hen­sive approach includes an inte­grated focus on wealth cre­ation, not as an end unto itself, but as another means of encour­ag­ing an individual’s com­mit­ment to giving.

The SIRV Speak­ers Series has exposed hun­dreds of young pro­fes­sion­als of color to a vari­ety of per­sonal finance, invest­ing and phil­an­thropy top­ics.  In 2006 and 2007, the Leg­ends in Busi­ness, Lead­ers in Phil­an­thropy series brought mid-career and more advanced alumni together to hear from exem­plary lead­ers on their inspi­ra­tional sto­ries of busi­ness suc­cess and phil­an­thropic involve­ment, and also learn about the oppor­tu­nity to estab­lish their own donor-advised funds through SEO’s part­ner­ship with the Tides Foundation.

Since 2002, grant­mak­ing ini­tia­tives like the Com­mu­nity Assis­tance Fund, Donor-advised Pooled Fund and Career Pro­gram Class Gift have given SEO alumni and stu­dents hands-on expe­ri­ence with col­lab­o­ra­tive phil­an­thropy, while help­ing them learn about needs in their com­mu­ni­ties.  To date, these projects have directed more than $830,000 in grants to non­profit organizations.

SIRV’s cre­ation and expan­sion was made pos­si­ble by grants from the W.K. Kel­logg Foun­da­tion, the Lilly Endow­ment, the F.B. Heron Foun­da­tion, the Edwin Gould Foun­da­tion and the Mer­rill Lynch Foun­da­tion, and through in-kind sup­port from J.P. Morgan.