NAME Aaron Contorer

WHAT HE DOES Full-time philanthropist, former Microsoft manager

CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION Social Venture Partners (SVP), a philanthropy group founded by former Microsoft and Aldus employees, with 1,600 members worldwide, including 130 members in San Diego

WHAT IT DOES Pools funds to invest in charitable causes, while holding the nonprofit groups accountable for hitting targets.

CONTRIBUTION Each member gives at least $5,000 a year for three years

SAN DIEGO FISCAL CONTRIBUTIONS 2005-06: $320,000, leveraged into “social value” of $2.4 million

WHAT HE LEARNED AT MICROSOFT Contorer said, “Many of us employees were lucky enough to have stock options in Microsoft, so a lot of us ended up with extra money that we weren ’t expecting. I was personally fascinated by how some people became very generous with extra money and others did not at all.

“Some people believe you can never have enough and some people believe you always have enough. And the question is: What are you going to do with the next thing you get?

“When you see the pleasure in helping an organization to help hundreds of other people, it feels like, buying an extra plasma TV or another car isn ’t gratifying at all compared to that. I now believe that spending my money to help people and improve the world is so much more gratifying. ”

prOVEN MODEL SVP holds grantees accountable, requiring quarterly targets and updates. SVP also puts a member on the nonprofit group ’s board, to advise them during the three-year term. SVP members also volunteer, typically 1,000 hours per year. If the group does not hit its targets, funding stops. “We really follow up again and again and again during the period of the grant,” said Contorer. “People tell us our time and management skills are worth more than the checks.”

CLEAN WATER SVP’s new $1 million fund will work with several groups on the issue of clean water in San Diego. “It is an issue everyone agrees is important,” said Contorer. “We love our home. We love San Diego. We need to find out what is required to keep this place great. ”

The $1 million fund will support several groups spanning environmental, scientific, academic, military and government groups.

“Philanthropy is at a minimum about teaching them how to fish, and at the maximum it ’s about restructuring the entire fishing industry to feed the whole world much better than it ever did before, ” said Contorer.

The fund helps various groups assess the community’s needs on several issues, including: air, land, energy, global warming and development. That means understanding the issues and their cost to society, said Contorer, and then creating solutions and working together to achieve those goals.

“Environmental groups don’t fix the environment alone. They work with businesses to change how things are done. They work with government to change how regulation and spending are done. ”

“We’re not the experts on the environment. Our goal is to support them. What are we experts on? Management and writing checks. ”

ROI “What price tag do you put on finding a home for a foster child?” asked Contorer. “What price tag do you put on not polluting our water systems, so that the beaches don ’t close? You can do an economic impact analysis on any of these and show in the first case that they are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And to avoid a beach closure is worth millions. ”

“Normally, I get a profit back directly” said Contorer. “In this case, we’re talking about social profits. We want to invest in organizations that are doing something so good for our society that the benefits are worth the cost. That is social profit. We
live here, so we want San Diego to get
the profit.”

“But we don’t really look at it that way. We look at what people are passionate about. People are passionate about
helping our children. People are passionate about protecting our homes and our
environment. ”

WEB sdsvp.org