The Power of Impact
The Power of Impact is boundless.
It is reflected both in the continued engagement of our members furthering the cause of our Grantees (“The Ripple Effect”) and in the follow-on programming established by our Grantees as a result of the success of the programs Impact FFC has funded (“The Next Chapter”).
Like a splash creating ripples on a pond, one Impact FFC grant can start a wave of actions that spread and exponentially increase our ultimate impact. We are thrilled to share some of these inspirational stories below.
The Ripple Effect: Lindsay Brachle & nOURish BRIDGEPORT
April 2023
“…Do you have any jelly?” After last month’s nOURish BRIDGEPORT volunteer morning, Impact FFC member Lindsay Brachle couldn’t get that question out of her head. And she knew she had to do something about it.
The Ripple Effect : Lizzy Scheinfeld & nOURish BRIDGEPORT
May 2023
Inspired. That’s how Lizzy Scheinfeld felt leaving Impact FFC’s Fall Kickoff gathering this past November. At the event, Reverend Sara Smith, nOURish BRIDGEPORT’s CEO, spoke about the stark differences in lifespan between Bridgeport and its neighboring communities.
The Next Chapter: The Rowan Center
August 2023
Impact Fairfield County’s mission is to give transformational grants to nonprofits. In 2017 when we awarded The Rowan Center $100,000 to build a program that would train trauma-informed nurses at local hospitals, we never could have imagined just how transformational our gift would be.
The Ripple Effect: Lindsay Wyman & Stamford Public Education Foundation
September 2023
Rewind five years. Lindsay Wyman was a new member of Impact Fairfield County, and after years as a teacher, school administrator, and national literacy consultant, was contemplating a career shift into the nonprofit world. Walking out of Impact’s 2018 Annual Meeting, Lindsay had a casual conversation with Matt Quinones, the CEO of Stamford Public Education Foundation (SPEF) – the nonprofit which had just won that year’s Impact FFC Grant.
The Next Chapter: The Center for Family Justice
February 2024
Restraining order. Divorce papers. Custody agreement. Request for child support. Navigating any one of these would be intimidating and stressful. Doing so without legal expertise or representation seems impossible. However, for many Bridgeport residents, this was their reality before The Center for Family Justice’s Pro Bono Legal Center (PBLC) opened in 2019.
The Next Chapter: INTEMPO
October 2023
Impact Fairfield County’s gift “afforded us [the chance] to think big,” shared INTEMPO founder and CEO Angie Durrell. When Impact FFC awarded INTEMPO $100K (INTEMPO’s largest gift at that time!) in 2021, we provided much more than seed funding for a new program at the organization. We gave INTEMPO the opportunity to dream and grow.
The Ripple Effect: Kerry Stevens & Open Doors
April 2024
Living in Maine with her family during the pandemic, the last thing Kerry Stevens thought she’d find was a new career path in Fairfield County, but as we’ve all learned over the last few years, life has a way of taking unexpected turns.
The Ripple Effect: Cathy Manion & Bridgeport Rescue Mission
Bridgeport Rescue Mission is a force in our community, providing vital services, free of charge, to neighbors in need. Cathy Manion, an Impact Fairfield County member since 2017, had long supported the Mission’s Great Thanksgiving drive when they applied for an Impact FFC grant in 2019. Their pitch for funding further piqued her interest in theorganization's planned expansion. The Rescue Mission had just purchased a former nursing home they would go on to convert into a new center for their community services – a shelter for homeless men, women, and children, a food pantry, hot meal services, and a health care clinic providing medical, dental, behavioral, general wellness and foot care services.