Our mission
We’re a progressive leader in women’s philanthropy, bringing new resources to the community and making philanthropy accessible. Through high-impact grant making, we engage, develop and inspire women to effect positive change.
Our beliefs and values
We believe a diverse group of women, by joining together, can make a big difference in the community. We value integrity, respect, continuous improvement and innovation. We pride ourselves on our transparency, excellence, inclusiveness and accountability. Moreover, each of our members has an equal voice in choosing the recipients of our grants.
Our vision and goals
Our vision is that our women are inspirational role models, reaching their full giving potential for a better quality of life in our community. We hope to count 500 women as Impact Austin members by our fifth anniversary this year. That goal will enable us to total $1.5 million in giving. What’s more, we plan to do this while being the most cost-efficient grant maker in the Austin area.
How we work
Impact Austin combines annual donations from members and gives multiple grants of more than $100,000 each June to local, worthy causes selected by our members. Our membership requirements are simply to be female and to donate $1,000 each year. Beyond this, each member can be as engaged or uninvolved as she chooses. One hundred percent of each member’s donation goes to our grant recipients.
We keep our overhead costs low by using an all-volunteer staff and tapping into the talent pool of our membership. We are committed to running Impact Austin efficiently by limiting our operating expenses to approximately 10 percent of our annual members' donations, raising separate funds to cover these overhead costs.
Grant applications are accepted in each of the following focus areas:
- Culture
- Education
- Environment
- Family
- Health and wellness
Members may volunteer to serve on committees to review grant applications and recommend finalists in each focus area. Grant finalists make presentations at our annual meeting in June of each year to share their stories with members and learn the outcome of the voting.
Each member casts one vote. The majority vote decides the winning grant recipients. Although members are welcome to volunteer on committees and encouraged to attend the annual meeting, we require no specific time commitment.
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Impact Austin members vote at the Annual Meeting on 6/07/07 |
Impact Austin is honored to be named the Outstanding Philanthropic Organization of the Year for 2007 by the Austin Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
