Our mission
Our beliefs and values
Our vision and goals
How we work
Our leadership
Girls Giving Grants

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 will ensure our long-term sustainability by tapping into the talents of our members and building Impact Austin from the "inside out."

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, except for Executive Director Liz Fitzgerald, and tapping into the talent pool of our membership.  We are committed to running Impact Austin efficiently and raise 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.

Debbie Dittmer and Joan Harman vote at the Annual Meeting on 6/10/08