This month, Impact100 is deep into grantmaking. Focus Area Committees wrapped up their virtual site visits and are now entering the home stretch to select this year's grant finalists. The pilot Community Awards Committee is also moving ahead steadily toward selecting its award finalists. Please watch for the announcement of all eight Core Mission and Community Awards Finalists on May 11.
None of this would be possible without the 431 women who joined Impact100 this year. The majority of our members choose to simply make a donation and invest in our collective grants, while many other members choose to volunteer -- serving on a Focus Area Committee or helping to create our communications, run programs, or spread the word about Impact100 and increase our membership. This year it has taken all 431 of us, at all levels of participation, to provide $420,000 in funding to eight organizations in the Philly region -- the most recipients we've ever had!
To all women, near and far, who would like to be part of the important, gratifying work of collective grantmaking: We welcome you and we want you as members! Read more about membership here.
Our Annual Meeting: Monday, June 7 at 7 pm
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Please mark your calendar for Impact100's signature gathering of the year. Though we'll meet virtually, the Annual Meeting will be a joyous celebration of our 2021 funding recipients.
Members: This is a great time to invite friends or colleagues to join you online to learn about Impact100's grantees and grantmaking. To all who are engaged in and are interested in supporting the Philadelphia region: We welcome you! Please watch for your invitation coming May 4.
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This month offers the second in a two-part feature about Impact100's Founders Fellows. |
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Founders Fellows:
Young voices and viewpoints make Impact better and better
Within our 2021 membership, there are 15 Founders Fellows, ages 25 to 35, whose membership is fully or partially sponsored by Impact100 Philadelphia. This program has grown steadily ever since members Carrie Brodsky, Sue Dubow, and Jacquie Stern first conceived of it in 2015 (after seeing a model run by a sister organization in Boston, The Philanthropy Connection). We are excited to announce that the program will grow even larger, and we will be able to support up to 20 Founders Fellows in 2022.
You can also learn a lot more about the Founders Fellows at our Spring Educational Program this month. We hope you'll join us on Monday, April 26 at 7 pm for a conversation among current Fellows Nia Daye, Sophia Peake, and Inella Ray, moderated by former Fellow Nora Elmarzouky. Founding member Ellan Bernstein will provide a brief history of the program. All are welcome -- members, friends, anyone interested in learning more about Impact100 and this cohort of young members.
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Above: A Founders Fellows meeting, Fall 2019
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Staying strong amid COVID challenges:
Environmental grantees continue to grow, preserve, and educate
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The best way to address serious flaws and injustices in our food system – now more visible than ever because of the pandemic -- “is by giving people the tools to grow their own food close to home,” says Meg MacCurtin, CEO of Impact 2020 grantee Greener Partners.
This concept of food sovereignty is central to Greener Partners’ mission. Through their urban gardening and food education programs in West Philadelphia, Chester and Norristown, Greener Partners builds lasting access to fresh food. Their neighborhood gardens yield and distribute hundreds of pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables each year.
For organizations like Greener Partners that work hands-on with their members, “this year has been particularly challenging,” says MacCurtin. “No part of our programming has been untouched by Covid-19, but our staff and neighborhood members have worked quickly and creatively in collaboration with other local organizations to adapt our hospital, school and community programs to address food insecurity.”
Through an expanded partnership with Common Market, a nonprofit that sources produce from nearby sustainable family farms, Greener Partners was able to scale up the distribution of locally-produced fruit and vegetables to those in West Philadelphia’s Belmont neighborhood.
When social distancing guidelines precluded families from picking up the produce at its usual sites -- schools and neighborhood gardens -- the organization had to rethink its distribution system. The solution came from a group of Greener Partners’ community members in the Belmont area who volunteered to pack and deliver boxes of Common Market’s produce to members.
Naming themselves “Families First,” these much appreciated volunteers were soon hired by Greener Partners as part-time employees. And while they still work weekly to deliver fresh produce, their roles have expanded. “Families First” recently participated in a virtual workshop on building beds and starting vegetable and fruit gardens. In the coming year, they will expand their educational roles and improve their leadership skills. This “training the trainer” model will significantly enhance Greener Partners’ reach in the community, says MacCurtin.
Greener Partners is also collaborating with another local organization, Get Fresh Daily. Founder Jiana Murdic conducts virtual cooking demonstrations using local produce delivered by Greener Partners’ volunteers.
Meanwhile, with the arrival of spring, the hands-on work of gardening is in full gear. Soil is being turned, compost is being added and seeds are being planted in more than 10 school, hospital, and community gardens established by Greener Partners.
Says MacCurtin: “All the work we have done since the pandemic began fits right into our mission -- strengthening community health through food, farm and education. Impact 100’s grant will build a continuing legacy of food self-reliance in communities where the challenges of food insecurity continue to intensify.”
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For the Neighborhood Gardens Trust, Philadelphia’s decision to classify community gardens as “essential services” was critical. “It meant we could keep the gardens open to serve the community through the growing season,” says Jenny Greenberg, NGT’s Executive Director. By adhering to social distancing and other safety rules, people “have been able to work outdoors, growing vegetables for themselves and for sharing and donating.”
NGT’s homepage links to a section called “Gardening during Covid” – a guide for the approximately 1,600 community residents who take care of the 49 gardens held by the trust, including those that serve low-income communities experiencing high levels of food insecurity.
NGT’s focus on preserving community gardens and other shared open spaces in the city of Philadelphia is unique. “Most land conservation organizations concentrate on rural areas, not urban,” says Greenberg. “We call ourselves Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Garden Protector.”
Yet Covid has posed a number of challenges to NGT’s activities, including its organized tours and open garden days. “The gardens normally serve as social gathering places,” says Greenberg. Safety restrictions required the gardens to start staggering the number of people who could be there at the same time and to put off improvements that required input from a large number of residents working concurrently.
Some major capital projects, however, are now back on line, including renovation of the Concert Garden in Point Breeze which added new seating, play features for children, green storm water infrastructure and lighting for community events. At the Five Loaves Two Fish Community Garden in West Philadelphia, NGT worked closely with garden leaders and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to put in a new water line and additional raised garden beds.
Another byproduct of Covid has been increased participation from garden leaders in NGT’s quarterly meetings, thanks to Zoom. “We can easily bring together a network of peers who are navigating similar challenges,” says Greenberg. “The group has really taken off.”
NGT, a 2019 Impact100 grantee, acquires three types of property – land owned by the city which NGT buys at below market rates; private tax-delinquent land that the city forecloses on, and privately-owned land that has no tax debt. In those last situations, NGT tries to orchestrate a land swap with the developer. If that doesn’t work out, NGT will buy the land at market rate with the help of state grants.
Other sources of funding for NGT include fundraising campaigns and a new major donor giving circle called “Guardians of the Gardens." In addition, it gets substantial overhead support from PHS.
One of the benefits of being able to permanently protect access to green spaces in Philadelphia, says Greenberg, is that the residents who have invested so much sweat equity creating them can continue to invest in them, knowing that their future is secure. “Gardens, especially when people are stuck in their homes, have become a place of refuge. Outdoor spaces are more valued than ever.”
To learn more about Neighborhood Gardens Trust, reach out to Impact100 Grant Champion Nancy Pasquier at ndpasquier@gmail.com.
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“Everyone values having access to outdoor space and to freshly grown food, even more so during the past year,” says Kim Jordan, Co-Executive Director of the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP).
And what a year it’s been for a nonprofit that specializes in planting and supporting community orchards in Philadelphia’s urban areas.
In pre-Covid years, POP had between 1,500 and 2,000 volunteers who participated in planting events, workshops and orchard work days. This past year, the West Philadelphia-based organization was supported by a core group of 14 lead orchard volunteers and 450 volunteer participants. The new reality has meant a lot more staff time spent on just helping partners keep all 65 existing orchards and gardens alive and healthy.
In pre-Covid years, POP partnered with 13 city schools, many of them serving economically disadvantaged children, to offer lessons in the design, planting, care, and harvesting of orchards. Those programs have been suspended, as have a number of adult education programs, including some that share cultural and culinary knowledge with members of the community.
And yet POP – a 2018 Impact100 grantee – has not compromised its core mission, working instead on creative ways that sidestep some of the Covid-imposed limitations. For example, whereas the group would normally do in-person harvests to pick fruit like juneberries and mulberries, it has created and shared maps that indicate where these trees exist in public places so that city residents can pick the fruit themselves.
They also host blog posts addressing such topics as the importance of nighttime pollinators (moths), how to cold-brew chicory coffee, the 2021 racial equity challenge, and favorite food forest perennials, among others.
To keep up community building, they are relying on their team of lead orchard volunteers to distribute what they expect will be more than 2,000 pounds of fresh produce to food distribution and mutual aid groups in local neighborhoods.
POP will also hold a spring open house and plant sale on May 22. Income from plant sales goes toward supplementing other sources of support, such as operational and foundation grants, individual donations, corporate contributions, and funds from the Payroll Protection Program (PPP). That last source of funds has allowed POP, which has two full-time and four part-time employees, to expand the hours of its program staff to accommodate increased partner demand.
The group was able to hold more events than ever in this past year, including weekly work days at The Woodlands and new plantings or expansions at 17 sites. But because of the pandemic, these events were smaller and not open to the general public. Says Jordan: “We are trying to balance what is feasible during Covid with being able to have people come in and experience the space.”
To learn more about the Philadelphia Orchard Project, reach out to Impact100 Grant Champion Abby Spector at abbyspector@comcast.net.
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Monday, April 26, 7 pm
Education Program
Following the Founders Fellows: Understanding the Journey
Sit in on a conversation among Impact Founders Fellows Nia Daye, Inella Ray, and Sophia Peake, as they discuss their experiences before and after joining Impact100. Moderated by former Founders Fellow and now Young Philanthropist Nora Elmarzouky.
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Monday, June 7, 7 pm
Impact100 Philadelphia's Annual Meeting
A celebratory event to mark the end of the grants year and honor the 2021 grantees
Watch for your invitation coming May 4
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Would you like to join us or tell others about Impact100? |
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If you'd like to tell others about our organization, please feel free to forward
this newsletter — and we thank you for spreading the word. The top reason for Impact100's growth since 2008 has been members referring other women as members.
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Women ages 36 and over join for $1,150; of that total, $1,000 is added to the grants pool for 2021 and the balance supports our operating expenses. Women 35 and under join as Young Philanthropists at half that rate, $575, with $500 going to the grants pool.
Members joining now will help fund the 2022 grants. The deadline to join is November 15.
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We welcome anyone — whether a member or not — to contribute to Impact100 Philadelphia's 2022 grant funding and to leverage a personal donation into large grants that will benefit nonprofits in the region.
Only members may cast a vote for grantees, but everyone is welcome to add to the funds that will support Impact100's 2022 grant recipients.
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