Non Profit News Pod: Impact 100's Astounding "Big Reveal".

Experience the powerful impact of collective giving alongside my guests, Evelyn Jensen, CEO, and Sarina Paulson, President of Impact 100. They share their insights on how a surge in membership has empowered this dynamic nonprofit to distribute an impressive $452,000 in grants to local nonprofits. We spotlight their innovative "Match Me" campaign, which showed how community spirit led to a remarkable outcome, raising $60,000 to support diverse grant categories in just one evening. 

Learn about the organization’s rapid growth, reaching 400 members in just three years, and the substantial positive shifts this has sparked within the nonprofit sector. Gratitude is expressed for the unwavering dedication of the Sacramento chapter, whose efforts are opening new doors and opportunities for local nonprofits, enhancing their ability to serve and support their communities. To learn more about the organization, visit the website HERE.

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Transcript

00:09 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Welcome to this nonprofit news pod bringing you a bit of information of value to our nonprofit community. Thursday, march 27th, something very special happened in our region. A nonprofit group comprised of wonderfully philanthropic women made a staggering announcement. That group is called Impact 100, which I think needs to be refreshed a little bit. As you'll hear in just a minute, I want two of the women in leadership for the organization to share with us what took place. Evelyn Jensen is CEO and Serena Paulson is president of Impact 100. Evelyn, in a nutshell, how does Impact 100 work? 

00:49 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
We are all women volunteers and basically through the power of collective giving, we award $100,000 grants to local nonprofits in Sacramento, yolo, placer and El Dorado counties. 

01:03 - Jeff Holden (Host)
How does that $100,000 come to be? 

01:06 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
that is the power of collective giving. So for every 100 women who join at a thousand dollars, that's a hundred thousand dollar grant, right? So there's so much more that goes into it with with the grant applications etc. But that in a nutshell, we are the power of collective giving and we award transformational grants to local nonprofits. 

01:31 - Jeff Holden (Host)
And last year, what was the number that you gave away to nonprofits and grants and awards that you recognized? 

01:40 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
$275,000. 

01:42 - Jeff Holden (Host)
So roughly last year 275 members-ish. 

01:46 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
Exactly. 

01:48 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Okay, and this year? 

01:51 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
This year we had a 42.5% increase in membership and we have 392 members. That's three $100,000 grants and one $92,000 grants, maybe. 

02:08 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Right, that's my simple math. Was going to say that's an amazing number, and this is now a three-year-old organization, if I'm not mistaken correct. 

02:17 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
Correct, we are rolling into our third year. 

02:20 - Jeff Holden (Host)
And what you do each year as you accumulate your funding is you have an event to recognize what that number is, the number of members as well as the dollar amount that's going to be awarded. Correct and simple math, as you said was 392 members, $392,000, up from last year's 275-ish. That in itself is phenomenal. 

02:48
Yeah, it leaves me speechless in some cases, because I know how many organizations work so hard just to get $25,000 or $30,000 or $40,000. Yet, to your point, the collective value of that is what really has given this so much momentum. Yes, so you've got your big reveal and you're at $392,000. Of course, we're all sitting there going we've got to get to $400,000. Somehow we've got to get to $400,000. That's four $100,000 grants. What happens then, serena? 

03:31 - Sarina Paulson (Guest)
membership team have done a great job of driving awareness about our organization and I think it is so important to capitalize and focus on the fact that we have the most generous members. And one of our members came forward and said you know, I think we should do a match me campaign. I will match up to $12,500 if the rest of the members will meet me there. And so we, at our big reveal on the 27th, we had a match me campaign and I don't even know if there's a word in the dictionary that really captures the feeling of that, because it was astounding the amount of members that raised their hand to contribute. 

04:08
I think what you said, Jeff, is correct the idea that we were so close to 400,000. And I just want to really illustrate that that is double the number of $100,000 grants we awarded last year. Right, we awarded two $100,000 grants and three $25,000 grants. So hitting 400,000 this year means we would double that. And so through the Match Me campaign, with that member's $12,500 donation, we were able to generate $60,000 in Match Me funds, which yielded $452,000. 

04:43 - Jeff Holden (Host)
That's the amount that just blows me away. I happen to have the privilege. Thank you very much for inviting me to attend and watching people contribute with a couple of $5,000 or $2,500 or $1,000, $1,500, I think it was down to the hundred dollar contributions brought that number to 60, some thousand dollars. That's amazing when all you were looking for was eight to get to 400. 

05:13 - Sarina Paulson (Guest)
That's true, and I do want to say that there's no amount that's too small. Right, and that's to Evelyn's earlier point, the power of collective giving. Everybody's able to give what resources that they have, but when you come together, regardless if it's $100 or $1,000 or $5,000, there is so much power in community right and giving together and that is really what our organization stands for is women coming together, doing what they can so that we can improve and enhance the lives of those in our communities and our neighbors. 

05:48 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Well, this truly is transformational when you're pushing for $100,000 grants Plus, I don't know quite how you distribute the $52,000. Maybe tell us what that looks like. 

05:58 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
So what that means is, right now we have four $100,000 grants and one $52,000 grant, so no matter what, everybody's going to walk away with a nice sum of money. If someone stepped up right now and got us to 500, we are still at the point where we could flop into our 500 process. So there's a different process when you have 500 members versus 275 members, and so we would work into that process instead, and that would look like five categories, right, health and wellness, education, arts and culture, family and environment, and we would have two finalists in each category who would all come together and speak. So, instead of the five finalists that we would normally have, we would have 10, and one from each category would walk away with $100,000. 

07:02 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Simply amazing. And Evelyn, in those processes of the applications which I believe the application window closed a while back. 

07:12 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
March 22nd. 

07:13 - Jeff Holden (Host)
You saw how many new applications over the prior year. 

07:19 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
We had a 30% increase. We went from 143 to 186. 

07:27 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Good for you, and I say good for you, but I know for you you're going. Oh my gosh, this is another 40, 50 applications that we have to go through and that difficult decision-making process of you have a wonderful organization. How do we vet and eliminate the ones that have to be eliminated because you're only going to give away so many grants? 

07:47 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
It's difficult, and that's where Sarina and the focus chairs kick in with all of the work that they've done ahead of time to train the focus teams and the nonprofits on writing a more transformational and sustainable application. So that's all. Serena and the focus team have done an excellent job on preparing our members to vet the applications and our nonprofits that are applying to write a better grant. 

08:29 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Sure. 

08:30 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
I was up in El Dorado County during the summer and there were 50 nonprofit tents set up and Lori Salter, our nonprofit liaison, and I split it up. We went from tent to tent talking to each one of them and one of them said to me I know who you are. I went to your grant training and I did not apply for your grant and I said please tell me why? And she said because I am not ready. And I said congratulations for knowing that. She said. However, I took all the tools that you taught not me Sarina taught in those classes and I applied them to the grant applications. In 2023, I got nothing. In 2024, I got every grant I applied for. Isn't? 

09:20 - Jeff Holden (Host)
that awesome and. 

09:21 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
I attribute that to Impact 100. 

09:24 - Jeff Holden (Host)
Well, the transformational change that $100,000 can bring to any organization is amazing, and to know that they've got the security of that in their back pocket as they go through fulfilling what their application was all about is just so reassuring. It builds their confidence. It allows them to really move forward in a different way than they might have otherwise without that funding. So I recall it was January of 2024, evelyn, when I had you in the studio and we talked about impact 100. And at that point in time you could see that you were probably going to get to 200. And I said, man, we should. 300, should be easy, 500 is not that far away. And it was like, oh, no, no, no, no, we're just happy to get to, you know, to the 200. We'll hope to get to the 300. And here you are already at 400 in less than three years. So do we call it Impact 400? 500? 

10:19 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
Well, you know, it's the whole philosophy behind this organization started with getting 100 members together in 2001. Wendy Steele created this philosophy together in 2001,. Wendy Steele created this philosophy. Our largest chapter is in Pensacola, florida, and they have 1,242 members, wow. So they award 1.2 million every year, and so we can just. 

10:50 - Jeff Holden (Host)
That gives us a goal right, Yep, and we are Sacramento proud, so we will get there. Ladies, thank you so much Congratulations. I know the entire nonprofit community is looking at you with a sense of wonderment and excitement knowing there's going to be that much more money for grants to improve and expand the services that these individual nonprofits provide. It's just so exciting. I'm as excited talking about it and having the conversation with you as I was that night, because I know what it means for so many nonprofits. Thank you to you, your team, the volunteers, everybody involved. Wonderful news, Thank you. 

11:29 - Evelyn Jensen (Guest)
Thank you, Jeff.