Nonprofits play a fundamental role in creating more equitable and thriving communities. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said recently, “More often, nonprofits toil quietly and without fanfare, as they help our city’s residents improve their lives…”
The women of Impact SA are starting this new year as strongly committed as ever to bringing more bright spots of hope to our community through our grants. As we begin our membership drive for 2021, I want to take the opportunity to highlight some of the challenges that motivate us as philanthropists.
Part of our role as a nonprofit funder of grants is to provide education to our members on the needs in our community since each of them has a role in deciding where our funds go.
In June of last year, SA2020 clustered our complex community challenges into five groups: Health, Home, Learning, Work and Mobility.
Our five focus areas, in which we award grants, cover the key underpinnings of a strong community, and they parallel in many respects what SA2020 has identified.
Using this breadth as our guide, Impact SA provides support to agencies across a range of critical needs. Our categories include: Health & Wellness; Family; Education; Environment, Recreation and Preservation; and Arts and Culture.
Below are some of the challenges our community is experiencing and which have been made worse by the pandemic. *
- Poverty: San Antonio has the highest poverty rate among major metropolitan areas in the U.S. at 13.5 percent, along with Miami, but these rates are much higher among Black and Hispanic populations.
- Health Access Gaps: Over 16 percent of San Antonians lack health insurance, with rates over 25 percent in some City Council districts.
- Food Insecurity: Because of the COVID pandemic, nearly 18 percent of households don’t have enough to eat.
- Housing Insecurity: One in three SA households (nearly half of renters) are finding it difficult to pay for the cost of housing. The pandemic has created eviction risk for many.
- Gaps in Digital Access: For many, digital access is their lifeline to education, employment, telemedicine, unemployment benefits and more. But 48% of households making less than $20,000 a year have no access from home.
- Family Violence: We have seen a spike in reports of domestic violence and child abuse, much of it tied to increased stress, isolation and loss of income triggered by the pandemic.
- Educational Gaps: Education is strongly linked to better quality of life outcomes, but we need to do more to encourage education beyond high school to help individuals earn a living wage.
- Unemployment: As of November, unemployment in the metro area was 7.8%, with the toll being heaviest on low-income workers. Programs are expanding to help those impacted, but more is needed.
- Mobility: Transportation costs can consume 23 percent or more of household income for up to 70 percent of households in our area, and many are dependent on public transportation for a wide range of needs.
With these facts in mind, I make this appeal to our existing members and other women who would like to be part of our efforts to alleviate these community challenges: Please join us! The more of us who embrace our inner philanthropist and shared humanity, the more help we can provide to this community we love so much. To join or renew, click here.
*Statistics come from a variety of federal, state and local sources.
