Lead Partners are the primary liaisons between SVP and our Investees, managing volunteer projects and advocating on their behalf.


They often volunteer with an organization for 3 years, spending from 4–10 hours a month working with the Executive Director and other Investee staff. Lead Partners generally have strong project management skills, allowing them to optimize capacity building relationships between SVP and the nonprofits we support.

A Lead Partner has four primary responsibilities:

I. Build and maintain a positive working relationship with the Investee through frequent, candid conversation around progress, successes and challenges. Develop a relationship based on trust and mutual respect. A consistent relationship is critical to the success of a SVP’s partnership with Investees.

II. Establish, drive, and monitor progress towards partnership vision for capacity-building goals, short-term milestones, and overall outcomes.

III. Be a critical friend: Ask the hard questions. Advocate for audacious thinking and creative solutions. Collaboratively address challenges. Celebrate milestones and document impact. Share the successes, lessons learned, and impact achieved.

IV. Coordinate volunteers/Investee needs. Communicate Investee’s needs with SVP staff, coordinate Partner engagement, and facilitate connections between Investee and Partners. Volunteer opportunities are a fundamental component of all SVP/Investee relationships. The LP plays a key role to ensure that SVP volunteers are recruited, supported, appropriately placed in a volunteer assignment, enjoy a sense of connection to other SVP volunteers, and understand that all volunteer contributions are meant to benefit the Investee.