Social Venture Technology Group
svtgroup.net
Brett Galimidi, 35, and Sara Olsen, 37
San Francisco, Calif.
The strategic consulting firm advises profits and nonprofits alike on ways to achieve their environmental and social goals. To do so, it relies in part on software it created internally that measure how effective organizations' projects are. The software includes such things as a "social return on investment calculator," which helps companies measure the actual impact of the projects they want to do. But SVT also provides consulting services. It recently helped Humanity United, a foundation started by Pamela Omidyar, wife of eBay (EBAY) founder Pierre Omidyar, figure out what the social and environmental impact of building an eco-lodge in Rwanda would be.
"We researched analogous regions and projects to understand how this might affect a community, similar geography and political climate," says Galimidi, who holds a master's in environmental management from Yale, and worked in Internet marketing and environmental sustainability. Olsen, a former Mississippi River Delta public school teacher and social worker holds an MBA from Berkeley.
SVT's client list includes heavy-hitter companies and foundations, including the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the San Francisco-based law firm Morrison & Foerster, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Goodwill Industries. All told, the five-person company, which had revenues of $500,000 in 2008, estimates its services and software impact some $2 billion slated for environmental and social causes.
