1 of 2
The local Impact 100 group is a diverse one, pulling from all ages and ethnicities. “It’s a great group of women,” Tracy Shackelford said. “It’s a really powerful dynamic with strong emotional connections.”
2 of 2
Impact 100 Greater Peninsula
An Impact 100 group forms in the Greater Peninsula and Williamsburg region, bringing women together to support charities in the region.
It may have been Aristotle who first said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but it’s the women of Impact 100 Greater Peninsula, stretching throughout Williamsburg, who set out to prove it locally.
Earlier this year, cofounders Courtney Gardner and Brooke Tiller searched for a way to gather together friends and make a difference in the community in a meaningful way. It was when they learned that women in other communities around the country—from Richmond to Seattle to Palm Beach to Farmville—were already doing something proactive together to transform their communities that a notion was born, when Impact 100 here was born.
The concept is wonderfully simple. When 100 women each donate $1,000, the group’s goal, it allows them to make a $100,000 donation to enable a nonprofit to complete a project that was previously out of reach. Charities apply for the grant and the entire group of women votes on the recipient.
That’s one recipient to receive one transformational grant. The goal? Having an impact.
Women who want to get involved but aren’t able to match the $1,000 donation are welcome too, as women are welcome to band together in giving circles of up to four people to raise the pledge amount. Each donor or circle gets one vote during the process to select the nonprofit.
“I was excited about women coming together to pool their charitable dollars to have a direct impact on the community,” Brooke Tiller said. “Women are more deliberate in their charitable giving.”
The Impact Movement
Dubbed “women’s giving circles,” groups such as Impact 100 Greater Peninsula have been on the rise, proof that women are becoming more strategic in their generosity while striving to have the greatest possible impact on causes they care about.
It’s why Williamsburg’s Elizabeth Foxx and Tracy Shackelford got involved, having already learned about a similar group in Richmond.
“Our motivation comes from being part of something bigger than anyone could do alone,” Shackelford said. “We’re all native [here] and love it. There’s a lot more money in women’s hands now. Impact 100 is a chance for us to realize the financial power we have as women.”
Part of the reason for the uptick in the giving circle movement at the end of the 20th century was because women had the ability to spend and donate as never before, a direct result of women’s increased income, education, and even inheritance. They’d finally gained control of their finances, not just their wealth, and gained an ability to donate to causes they found meaningful.
“I believe women have, historically, given more of their time and talents than men because they had more time and didn’t necessarily control the purse strings,” Foxx said. “Now that women are working and earning more, I believe they contribute to charities or organizations that serve the community they live in because they’ve spent time volunteering with them, or to an organization that supports a disease process they are affected by, like breast cancer or muscular dystrophy.”
The local Impact 100 group is a diverse one, pulling from all ages and ethnicities. “It’s a great group of women,” Shackelford said. “It’s a really powerful dynamic with strong emotional connections. We decided let’s reflect the community and who we are geographically. But it’s also lots of fun and there’s lots of laughter.”
What to Expect In Williamsburg
The Impact 100 Greater Peninsula is well on its way to its first grant. It has begun collecting pledges—which are administered by the Peninsula Community Foundation—and it’s hearing from more and more women who want to become involved. Once women sign up, they can become as involved as they want.
In February the group will hold the “Big Learn,” a presentation for nonprofits interested in how the grant-writing process works.
“What happens with grant writing is very specific. If you don’t get coached on it, then following the process is challenging,” Shackelford said.
Because the award is not intended for general budget items or day-to-day expenses, the goal is to pick a group attempting a transformational project.
“I like the idea of motivating nonprofits to develop that project that they see can make a difference in the people they serve,” Foxx said. “With the amount of money we plan to give to one group, I think it’s exciting to afford them the opportunity to achieve a dream that they may have been holding onto for a while.”
Proposals are due in March. Committees will then pare down the candidates to five finalists, who will be invited to make presentations at an event in May to be held for the Impact 100 members. The event, dubbed the “Big Give,” is immediately followed by a live vote to determine which nonprofit will receive the $100,000.
The process has been described by participants in other area Impact 100 groups as empowering, thrilling, and heart stopping but also more difficult than expected with so many meaningful projects to consider.
The Future Impact
While the group’s members won’t make their first award until May, their optimism for the future is enormous.
“We’ll give $100,000 in the spring,” Shackelford said authoritatively, “but long-term, we’ll get to the point where we can give $200,000 or $300,000 a year. Then we’ll need to decide, do we give one grant or multiple grants?”
Foxx today can envision the many groups benefiting from the money they’ll receive from Impact 100 Greater Peninsula over the coming years. She’s sure once more women hear about the positive impact the group has had on the community, they’ll want to be a part of it going forward.
“Every day, I think of more and more people I know who I think will want to be part of this. There are some amazing and generous people around here and they just need to see how their dollars can affect the lives of the people around us.”
At press time, the women of Impact 100 of the Greater Peninsula have raised $13,000. For more information or membership details, go to pcfvirginia.org.
This article appeared in The Holiday 2015/Winter 2016 issue of the Local Scoop Williamsburg Magazine, pgs. 8-10.