The Social Impact Firm & Podcast

08/28/2026

The reason a small organization misses out on funding is rarely eligibility. It’s that nobody on a team of four has a spare afternoon to go find the money.

So here’s September, in one place 🫶🏻

For nonprofits, The Lawrence Foundation opens September 1 with $5,000 to $10,000 for environment, human services and disaster relief, and there’s no letter of inquiry in the way. Walmart’s Spark Good Local Grants run through November 30 at $250 to $5,000, and the account verification is the slow part, so September is when to start. In LA County, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation accepts letters of inquiry year round and its median award is $50,000.

For founders, the Amber Grant closes September 30 at $10,000 for women-owned businesses. Verizon Small Business Digital Ready funds ten businesses a month at $10,000.

And the Awesome Foundation gives $1,000 to anyone with a community project, individuals included, with no 501(c)(3) required.

Two things worth knowing that most lists leave out. Amber’s $15 application fee is waivable on request, which almost nobody does. And the Verizon application only unlocks after you complete two free courses on their platform, which is why so many people start it and never finish.

We publish this every month because funding information is unevenly distributed, and the organizations that most need the money are usually the ones with the least time to go looking for it. If you’re working on something and want a second set of eyes on your funding strategy, our door is open. 🙌🏻

08/27/2026

Women are 67% of the nonprofit workforce. At the largest organizations in the sector, they hold 31% of the CEO seats.

That gap is the whole story, and it repeats everywhere you look.

A woman running a nonprofit earns 73 cents for every dollar a man in the same seat earns, and the gap gets wider as the budget gets bigger, not smaller. Of the $289 billion in venture funding that moved globally in 2024, all-women founding teams received 2.3% of it. Not 2.3% of the ideas or 2.3% of the ambition, just 2.3% of the money. And in the Fortune 500 this year, 55 companies are led by women, which works out to 11% and is an all-time record, up from 7.4% in 2020.

We say that last one out loud on purpose, because progress is real and it deserves to be counted. But a record of 11% tells you exactly how much room is left.

Here’s what we take from it. The women in this sector are not short on capability or commitment, they’re short on capital, on titles, and on being paid what the work is worth. Closing that is not a side project inside the mission of building a better world, it is one of the fastest ways to get there.

So that’s who we build for, and it’s why we do this work at all. Save this one, and send it to a woman who’s building something. 🤎

08/21/2026

There’s a particular kind of quiet that falls over a crowd right before a ribbon is cut, and then the sound that follows it is unlike anything else.

This week our team joined San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity to celebrate as survivors were welcomed home. These aren’t just houses, they’re the first real step back toward stability for families who lost nearly everything, and watching them walk through their own front door was a reminder of why this work matters.

What struck us most came from Habitat CEO Bryan Wong, who told the room there are 15 more houses under construction right now. One home is a milestone, but fifteen more in progress is a commitment, and it takes an extraordinary amount of coordination between donors, volunteers, city partners, and staff to make that possible.

At The Social Impact Firm, we believe that stories like this deserve to travel further than the guest list at a ribbon cutting. Helping mission-driven organizations bring visibility to their work is what we do, and partnering with a team like Habitat makes it easy.

To everyone at San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity, thank you for the incredible work you do in our community. This is just the beginning.

08/21/2026

08/20/2026

BAFTA had never professionally documented this week. So we did.

The Student Awards have run for years. The week of programming that leads up to them, the studio visits and panels and workshops that are arguably the whole point, had never been properly captured.

BAFTA North America runs on a team of six, and one person carries all content and comms. So the brief was never “cover the ceremony.” It was to document the entire week, in formats flexible enough to live on social, on YouTube, on a first-ever live stream, and at their annual meetings.

Five days, July 13 to 17. The BAFTA office, Sony Pictures Animation, Titmouse in Burbank, NBCUniversal, and awards night at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.

We wrote the interview questions before we landed and set light and sound before anyone sat down. We shot every setup horizontal and vertical so nothing had to be reshot for a different platform, posted in real time while the week was still running, and carried partner content for e.l.f. Cosmetics, Delta, Virgin Atlantic, Crunchyroll, and Don Julio throughout.

One finalist told us these are connections that are gonna stay with us for a lifetime. That sentence only exists because someone planned for the moment it might happen.

Swipe for the whole week. 🤎

08/19/2026

Most mission-driven organizations don’t have a growth problem. They have a focus problem.

The pattern I see over and over: an org describes itself five different ways depending on who’s in the room, posts in bursts whenever someone has time, and starts building relationships the same month they need something. Then they conclude that the algorithm is broken, or that they need a bigger budget.

Three moves change that, and none of them require more money.

Say one thing until it sticks. If your board, your donors, and your community are all hearing a different version of your mission, nobody is repeating it on your behalf. Pick the sentence that’s true in every room and stay on it long past the point where you’re tired of it.

Show up on schedule, not on inspiration. Virality is a lottery ticket. Consistency is a compounding asset. A cadence you can actually sustain will outperform an ambitious one you abandon by October, because the real signal you’re sending is simply that you’re still here.

Build the room before you need it. The worst time to meet a funder is the week you need funding. The relationships built when you had nothing to ask for are the ones that answer when you finally do.

This is unglamorous work, which is precisely why it’s a competitive advantage. Most organizations won’t sustain it long enough to find out what it does. But you will!

Let’s us help when you need a hand 🤚 link in bio for a free consultation 🫶🏻

08/11/2026

Summer taught you what works. Fall is where you put it to work. The founders and leaders we partner with aren’t waiting for September to feel ready, they’re spending August building the thing they’ll launch when everyone else is just getting back from the summer rest.

Whatever “what’s next” means for you: a program, a campaign, a bolder version of the work you’re already doing. This is the month to move on it.

Save this to mark your August reset and connect with us, maybe we are the missing piece to help you achieve your vision ⚡️

08/01/2026

POV: You just saved 20+ hours of grant research. 🧡

August’s Playbook is for the founders — minority-owned, women-owned, and impact-driven businesses. Six verified funding opportunities, from $2,500 rolling micro-grants to a social impact fund writing checks up to $500K:

🌱 Roddenberry Catalyst Fund — $2.5K–$15K for early-stage social-impact ideas
💼 NASE Growth Grant — up to $4K for self-employed entrepreneurs
📲 Verizon Small Business Digital Ready — $10K, 10 winners every month
✨ SoGal Black Founder Startup Grant — up to $10K, rolling
🌸 Amber Grant — $10K monthly for women-owned businesses (closes Aug 31!)
❤️ AHA Social Impact Fund — up to $500K for orgs serving under-resourced communities

✅ Save this so the deadlines don’t pass you by
✅ Send it to a founder in your corner
✅ Always confirm eligibility on the funder’s site before applying

And if funding strategy is the thing that keeps sliding down your list — that’s literally what we do. Link in bio. 📩

07/29/2026

Hate has no place in Altadena. 🤍

We stand with our neighbors at the Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center after the recent antisemitic vandalism of their community mural, the one that reads “We are all responsible for each other.”

That message is exactly why this hurts, and exactly why we won’t let it stand. To our Jewish neighbors: we see you, we grieve with you, and we are beside you. As Altadena rebuilds, we recommit to being a community where every faith and every person belongs.

Hate doesn’t get the last word here. Community does. 🤍