VPP’s investment approach is based on the following factors. None of these factors is unique to VPP, but we believe that the combination of all of these factors is unique.

• We invest exclusively in strengthening organizations—that is, we help nonprofits build their organizational capacity—rather than supporting individual programs. Nationally, the available funding for this purpose is one of the smallest and most constrained resource pools.
  
  
• We are engaged and highly leveraged in our approach—that is, we add value through our strategic assistance in addition to our funding. We seek to leverage fully VPP’s brand, network of contacts, and energies for the benefit of our partner organizations, to help encourage and support positive change in these organizations and, as a result, in the lives of the children they serve. VPP’s leverage is also exercised in the direction we provide, in the form of strategic advice, executive counseling, and other forms of management support. We serve as a combination of change agent, funder, executive coach, advisor, board member, and consultant.
  
  
• Our investments take a long-term perspective and are substantial in size. Our financial support usually extends over at least several years, while the strategic assistance may continue on for several more years. Our major investments are in the range of $1-3 million, making these investments among the largest organization building grants available today.
  
  
• Our approach is outcomes-based and information-driven. When an organization enters into a multiple-year investment partnership with us, its leaders recognize that our continued funding and support is contingent upon their achievement of specific, agreed-upon milestones—social outcomes, outputs, and organizational accomplishments. More important, we place a high priority on helping investment partners establish information-based systems to enable management to assess the organization’s performance, foster continuous improvement, and demonstrate for stakeholders that the organization is making meaningful improvements in the lives of the children it serves.
  
  
• Our investment support is geared toward enhancing the sustainability of our nonprofit partners. The private-sector concept of “exit strategies” does not apply to investing of our type. From the outset of our relationship with our partners, we work to focus our partners on understanding their economic model and helping them become more financially sustainable to ensure long-term funding for their organization as well as to ensure no continuing dependency on our financial support. As one example, we will play a proactive role in introducing our investment partners to new institutional funders and individual donors who could become sources of capital. And for VPP, promoting sustainability goes beyond financial sustainability; it also includes organizational sustainability. As such, we do not present ourselves as a technical resource or implementer (the “give a man a fish” approach). Instead, we help our partners to further develop their own capacity to achieve their organizational objectives.
  
  
• VPP’s investments are partnerships based on shared risks and rewards. We are not naïve enough to believe that the power differential between grantmaker and grantseeker magically disappears, but we do make every effort to build trust between the parties and structure the relationship so that our success is directly predicated on their success.