Wendy Steele

Last updated
Wendy Steele
Born
Wendy Lynne Hermann
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Connecticut College
Occupation(s)Founder of Impact100, social entrepreneur and consultant
Children3
Website impact100global.org

Wendy Steele is an American civil activist, social entrepreneur and philanthropist who is best known as founder of Impact100, a nonprofit organization with over 60 chapters across the United States, [1] the United Kingdom, Australia [2] and New Zealand. [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Background

Wendy Steele grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and St. Louis, Missouri. She is the middle child of three daughters born to Richard Hermann, a sales executive, and Margaret (Margo) Hermann, a homemaker. [5] She attended Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, where she received her B.A. degree in Economics in 1985. [7]

In addition to founding Impact100, Steele worked in private banking for more than 20 years. She moved from Connecticut to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1992, and founded Impact100 in 2001. Steele has three children [5] and currently resides in Traverse City, Michigan. [3] Steele is a recipient of the 2014 Jefferson Award for establishing Impact100 and her charity activity. [8]

Philanthropy and civic activity

Steele founded Impact100 in 2001, with the first chapter registered in Cincinnati, Ohio. [9] [10] Impact100 received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2002. [11] From the beginning, the organization's mission was to raise money for local and regional philanthropic causes and engage more women in philanthropic activity. The first Impact100 chapter in Cincinnati raised $123,000 in 2002 and awarded it to the McMicken Dental Clinic, which serves the homeless and uninsured. [5] Since then, the model has been replicated in more than 60 cities across the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and donated over $90 million to charities. [3] [12] [13]

Impact100 acts as an intermediary between local donors and charities within the geographical boundaries of each chapter. The main idea is to pool philanthropic contributions from at least 100 women in each chapter and then offer grants of $100,000 or more for local needs. [14] [15] [16] The funding is distributed among five main program areas: education, environment, family, health and wellness, and arts and culture. [17] Though connected by one mission, individual Impact100 chapters are operated autonomously. [4] [6] While the minimum requirement of every Impact100 chapter is to congregate at least 100 women in order to register and become eligible for charity activity , many chapters have more than 500 members. For example, the nonprofit's largest chapter is located in Pensacola, Florida which has more than 1,100 members. [5] [18] [19] [20]

Book

Steele is the author of Invitation to Impact: Lighting the Path to Community Transformation. The book was published MFF Publishing in April 2023.[ citation needed ] The book serves as both a memoir, tracing Steele's personal and professional journey, and a guide to the philosophy and practice of collective philanthropy. It details the inception and evolution of Impact100, a model wherein women contribute financially to make significant collective contributions to impactful and sustainable projects. The narrative is interspersed by personal anecdotes that offer insights into Steele's motivations and experiences. [21]

Awards and recognitions

In 2014, Steele received the Jefferson Award for her role in establishing Impact100 and her philanthropic activities. [22] The Jefferson Award is given to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to public service and have positively impacted their communities. In the year 2020, she was recognized as a Distinguished Honoree of the Jones Prize in Philanthropy, awarded by the Institute of Private Investors.[ citation needed ]

Steele was named among Forbes' 2021 50 Over 50 list of Women Leading the Way in Impact. [23] In 2022, she was one of the Distinguished Women Honoree of Northwood University. [24]

Steele has also been acknowledged as a notable speaker on multiple occasions. [25] [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Way</span> Nonprofit organization

United Way is an international network of over 1,800 local nonprofit fundraising affiliates. Prior to 2015, United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public. Individual United Ways mobilize a single fundraising campaign to raise money for various nonprofits, with most donations coming through payroll deductions.

Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material gain; and with government endeavors that are public initiatives for public good, such as those that focus on the provision of public services. A person who practices philanthropy is a philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alpha Gamma Delta</span> International collegiate womens fraternity

Alpha Gamma Delta (ΑΓΔ), also known as Alpha Gam, is an international women's fraternity and social organization. It was founded on May 30, 1904, by eleven female students at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, and thus it is the youngest member of the Syracuse Triad of North American social sororities that also includes Gamma Phi Beta (1874) and Alpha Phi (1872). Since its founding, Alpha Gamma Delta has, as of December 2021, initiated over 201,000 members and installed 199 collegiate chapters and more than 250 alumnae groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lambda Theta Alpha</span> American Latina-interest collegiate sorority

Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Inc. (ΛΘΑ) is the first and largest Latina-based sorority, established in 1975 at Kean University by seventeen women of Latin, Caribbean, and European descent as a support system for women in higher education. According to their website, Lambda Theta Alpha states that its focus would be to "actively integrate itself into the social, political and community service arena that other students had been involved with."

A giving circle is a form of participatory philanthropy by a group of individuals who form a voluntary association to donate their money or time. The group then decides how to allocate these resources to charitable organizations or community projects. Groups may also seek to increase their awareness of and engagement with the issues covered by the charity or community project.

GiveWell is an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization. GiveWell focuses primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percentage of the organization's budget that is spent on overhead.

Candid is an information service specializing in reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies. In 2016, its database provided information on 2.5 million organizations. It is the product of the February 2019 merger of GuideStar with Foundation Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MacKenzie Scott</span> American philanthropist and novelist (born 1970)

MacKenzie Scott is an American novelist, philanthropist, and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. As of June 2024, she has a net worth of US$36.1 billion, owning a 4% stake in Amazon. As such, Scott came out of her divorce as the third-wealthiest woman in the United States and the 47th-wealthiest individual in the world. Scott was named in the list of world's 100 most powerful women by Forbes in 2023 and 2021; including one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philanthropy in the United States</span> Overview article

Philanthropy in the United States is the practice of voluntary, charitable giving by individuals, corporations and foundations to benefit important social needs. Its long history dates back to the early colonial period, when Puritans founded Harvard College and other institutions. Philanthropy has been a major source of funding for various sectors, such as religion, higher education, health care, and the arts. Philanthropy has also been influenced by different social movements, such as abolitionism, women’s rights, civil rights, and environmentalism. Some of the most prominent philanthropists in American history include George Peabody, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover, and Bill Gates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holden Karnofsky</span> American nonprofit executive

Holden Karnofsky is an American nonprofit executive. He is a co-founder and Director of AI Strategy of the research and grantmaking organization Open Philanthropy. Karnofsky co-founded the charity evaluator GiveWell with Elie Hassenfeld in 2007 and is vice chair of its board of directors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Dietlin</span>

Lisa M. Dietlin is speaker and writer on the subject of philanthropy. She is the author of four books about the subject, and she is the President and CEO of the philanthropic consulting company The Institute of Transformational Philanthropy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jefferson Dollars for Scholars</span> Educational philanthropic organization

Jefferson Dollars for Scholars is a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana-based philanthropic organization founded in 1993 whose mission is to expand access to educational opportunities for Jefferson Parish Public Schools students through scholarships and academic support.

GivingTuesday, often stylized as #GivingTuesday for the purposes of hashtag activism, is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It is touted as a "global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world". An organization of the same name is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports the global movement.

Women's Entrepreneurship Day (WED) is a day celebrated annually on 15 November on which the work of women entrepreneurs is observed and discussed, held every day of each year. The inaugural event was held in New York City at the United Nations, with additional events being held simultaneously in several other countries. 144 nations overall recognized the first WED in 2014, which included the presentation of the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Pioneer Awards. The organization behind WED also has an ambassadorship and fellowship program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BitGive Foundation</span> American nonprofit organization

The BitGive Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that solicits bitcoin donations for use in charitable causes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colleen Willoughby</span> American philanthropist (born 1934)

Colleen S. Willoughby is an American philanthropist and the founder and former president of the Washington Women's Foundation, and the director of Global Women Partners in Philanthropy.

Charity assessment is the process of analysis of the goodness of a non-profit organization in financial terms. Historically, charity evaluators have focused on the question of how much of contributed funds are used for the purpose(s) claimed by the charity, while more recently some evaluators have placed an emphasis on the cost effectiveness of charities.

Impact100 is a nonprofit philanthropic organization with local chapters in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, that was founded by Wendy Steele in 2001.

The New York Community Trust is a community foundation that serves New York City's five boroughs, Long Island, and Westchester County. As a public charity, The Trust administers more than 2,200 charitable funds created by individuals, families, and businesses.

References

  1. ↑ "Woman-led Impact100 Louisville looks to triple its original fundraising goal". Louisville Business Journal.
  2. ↑ "In conversation with Wendy Steele". ProBono Australia.
  3. 1 2 3 "Impact100 Empowers Women to Make a Difference". Seen Magazine.
  4. 1 2 "Women's philanthropy leaves an IMPACT". USA Today.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "A Grand Hand". People.
  6. 1 2 "Thank you to the women of IMPACT 100". Messenger-Inquirer.
  7. ↑ "Harriet Buescher Lawrence '34 Prize: Wendy Hermann Steele '85". Connecticut College: Notable alumni.
  8. ↑ "Impact 100 founder named Jefferson Award winner". Cincinnati Enquirer.
  9. ↑ Women, Wealth and Giving: The Virtuous Legacy of the Boom Generation (by Margaret May Damen). John Wiley & Sons. 9 December 2009. ISBN   9780470585573.
  10. ↑ The Transformative Power of Women's Philanthropy: New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, Number 50 (by Martha A. Taylor, p.17). Wiley. 2005. ISBN   9780787986179.
  11. ↑ "Impact100 Organization". GuideStar.
  12. ↑ "Traverse City Resident Named Global Chief Philanthropy Officer". MyNorth. 23 April 2021.
  13. ↑ "Impact100 brings women together to create philanthropic power". Detroit Free Press.
  14. ↑ "Impact100 Sonoma awards $300,000 to 13 Sonoma Valley nonprofits". Sonoma Valley Sun. 4 April 2021.
  15. ↑ "Helping hands: Impact100 Metro Detroit announces finalists; Eligible households can receive discount on broadband". The Oakland Press.
  16. ↑ "Impact100 Greater Chesapeake Offers $81,000 Grant". Pasadena Voice.
  17. ↑ "Palm Beach Society: Impact 100 awards grants, welcomes founder for 'Coffee and Conversation'". Palm Beach Daily News.
  18. ↑ "Impact100 Chapters". Official website.
  19. ↑ "Impact 100 PBC Celebrates 10 Years Of Giving". Boca Magazine. 28 September 2020.
  20. ↑ "Impact100 and Girl Scouts Gulf Coast Florida host suffragist celebration". Your Observer. 15 September 2020.
  21. ↑ Silverman, Audrey (2023-05-15). "Invitation to Impact: Lighting the Path to Community Transformation". Candid. Philanthropy News Digest.
  22. ↑ "Impact 100 founder named Jefferson Award winner". Cincinnati Enquirer.
  23. ↑ McGrath, Maggie (ed.). "50 Over 50 2021: Impact". Forbes.
  24. ↑ "Distinguished Women Awards". Northwood University. Retrieved 2023-07-13.
  25. ↑ "America's Top 25 Philanthropy Speakers". myemail.constantcontact.com.
  26. ↑ "America's Top 20 Philanthropy Speakers". myemail.constantcontact.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.