In June 2000, Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP) was created. Our co-founders—Raul Fernandez, Mark Warner, and Mario Morino—recruited 26 other technology and business leaders and several foundations to join together and contribute more than $30 million to capitalize VPP’s first investment fund. The Morino Institute, led by Mario Morino, provided separate funding to create, incubate, and build the organization and its capacity. These 29 founding investors united behind a bold vision to alter the status quo for children in need of opportunity and, at the same time, create a different, innovative approach to philanthropy.

We believed we could adapt the relevant principles of private investment and apply them for investing in the nonprofit sector. The goal: Build truly high-performing nonprofit institutions that demonstrably improve the lives of low-income children. By helping these organizations and their leaders generate this superior social return, we believed our way of investing could help trigger a long-term reallocation of capital, talent, and other resources to those high-performing organizations making the biggest impact.

VPP’s investment successes not only would help its high net worth investors be more effective with their own philanthropy but would also encourage them to use their significant political, social, and financial influence to drive lasting change in the field. And, as our nonprofit partners grew stronger, our investors got more engaged, and we developed our web of relationships with foundations, businesses, and government agencies, VPP would be in a position to significantly leverage the effectiveness and impact of all.

Armed with these goals, we set about the task. We targeted our investing to improve the lives of children of low-income families—the working poor and those in poverty. Our investments focused on meeting the core educational, learning, and healthy developmental needs of children and youth, so they would have the opportunity to grow into adults leading productive, healthy lives. And we targeted our efforts on the National Capital Region—Washington, DC, and its surrounding suburban areas in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

VPP is now in the process of investing that capital-and countless hours of management resources-in 12 nonprofit organizations in the National Capital Region. We’ve partnered with 12 good nonprofit leaders, helping them build stronger, more effective organizations serving more children better. We’ve created an organization that is becoming a key asset and resource while meeting a critical need in the region. And we are proving a model that can be applied to assist other regions and metropolitan areas.