Impact 100 to announce 2024 Northwest Florida grant finalists

PENSACOLA, Fla. ( WKRG ) — An organization that seeks to empower women in Northwest Florida is closer to naming this year’s grant recipients.

Impact 100 announced its annual grant finalists on Wednesday morning in downtown Pensacola. Fifteen nonprofits pitched the specific reasons they hope to receive a grant from the committee of Impact 100 in October.

Impact 100 is an organization of philanthropic women, made up of 1,208 members. This year marks the 21st year that Impact 100 will award grants to local nonprofit organizations.

Of the 15 nonprofits who spoke Wednesday morning at the Palafox House, 12 will be selected by the Impact 100 committee on Oct. 13.

The 12 nonprofits selected will each receive a grant of $100,670. About $1.2 million will be awarded in grants to help positively impact the community.

Grants are distributed in five focus areas: arts, education, environment, family and health.

Impact 100 Pensacola-Bay Area President Kristin Longley said she feels lucky to have led such an impactful cause for over 10 years.

“Many of our members talk about the love that they have for collectively making a difference right here in our neighborhoods, in our Pensacola Bay Area and that’s an opportunity that we love, and we feel like the process works very well,” Longley said.

Organizations that have received an Impact 100 grant over the last 10 years. (News 5 photo)

One of the 15 organizations from the family focus area, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, has served the Pensacola community for 91 years.

Society of St. Vincent de Paul volunteer Ellen Peppler has worked with the society for over 20 years and recognized the impact this grant would have in their food-pantry improvements and the purchasing of flooding prevention equipment.

“We have been here since 1933 and we have been serving the poor all of those years with help from the community, of course, but this kind of recognition when you think about the kind of good we could do, with this much money, it’s pretty incredible,” Peppler said.

This year is the first in which Impact 100 will award as many as 12 nonprofits with significant grants. Since Impact 100’s first year in the Pensacola Bay area, 153 nonprofits have been awarded grants, totaling over $16 million to help serve Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.

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