As we enter our 11th year as Impact 100 Chicago, I'm reminded of why I joined in the first place - helping not-for-profits serve their clients by awarding impactful grants. We do that through a 100% volunteer organization of women from all walks of life who join together towards a common goal. To see all those people come together and award over $3.1 million of grants is amazing.
Hello all, my name is Deb Gammon and I'm honored to serve as your President for the upcoming year. I've been a member for all but the first year and started out by serving on the Financial Review Committee.
We all should thank Kathy Loria for her years of serving as our President. She guided us wisely through some tough decisions - and we are stronger because of it. Let's give Kathy a standing ovation for all of her hard work and wisdom.
Our Grant Cycle is open and non-profits in the Chicago suburbs can submit Letters of Inquiry (LOI) until October 9. If you know of a NFP in the collar counties who could use our help, direct them to our website.
We have expanded our Board to include a two new positions: Corporate Membership, led by Deb Armstrong, the immediate past president of Palatine Bank & Trust, our bank which is a member of Wintrust; and Nonprofit Outreach. Mindy Winkel has rejoined the Board to tackle this critical piece of the puzzle.
Here is the full slate of Directors:
President: Deb Gammon
Past President: Kathy Loria
Secretary: Reena Saluja
Treasurer: Tracy Leiser
Membership Accounting: Pragna Patel
Corporate Membership: Deb Armstrong
Grants Director: Sue Key
Nonprofit Outreach: Mindy Winkel
Technology Director: Kathy Froehlich
Communications Director: Gina Turner
Member sign-up for the 2020-2021 Grant year continues until December 31. Where would we be without our members? I would like each of you to challenge yourself to not only join again to support our cause but to introduce just one new friend to Impact 100 Chicago and get them to join. It's a great way to have special "girlfriend" time - and do something wonderful at the same time.
Sign-ups for the Grant Review Committees and Financial Review Committee opens at the beginning of November. GRC meetings start in January and FRC meetings in late February. Serving on a GRC and FRC is rewarding - you get to see all of the members hard at work to make the right decisions for our grant awards. Without these committees, we would be hard pressed to review, evaluate and determine our finalists. See our website for more details.
In addition, there does exist volunteer opportunities to work with one of the Directors on their area of responsibility - if you have ideas you want to share, feel free to contact any one of us.
I've been accused of being verbose, so I will stop here. I am passionate about the mission of Impact 100 Chicago and I hope you are too. Together, we can accomplish something amazing.
Have a great September!