While the unemployment rate in Dallas has been shrinking since hitting a high of 12.8 percent in April, it is still higher than it has been since 2013. And at a time when investments in job creation and education are as important as ever, the Dallas Foundation giving a financial boost to local organizations supporting those efforts.
The nearly century-old nonprofit made up of community stakeholders awarded its annual Pegasus Prize, a $50,000 grant, to local underrepresented founder-focused nonprofit startup accelerator Impact Ventures. This year, the Dallas Foundation also awarded $10,000 to a joint venture between NPower Texas and Per Scholas, and another $10,000 to the AES Literacy Institute.
“The Dallas Foundation is committed to driving genuine change and impact across North Texas, and we are thrilled with the work Impact Ventures has done so far - and will continue to do - in furthering entrepreneurship for all in our region,” said Dallas Foundation CEO Matthew Randazzo in a statement.
The Dallas Foundation has been awarding the annual grant, which focuses on social innovation organizations that are addressing community issues, for some time. Last year, the Pegasus Prize went to yoga program Yoga N Da Hood. In 2018, it went to homeless student after school program organization After8toEducate. And in 2017, it went to job training program for felons 2ndSaturday.
Part of the reason the Dallas Foundation chose Impact Ventures for the award has been the recent success it has seen with its IV Accelerator program. Now, in its second cohort, Impact ventures has seen more than 125 entrepreneurs go through the program. Collectively, they have gone on to create 46 new jobs and raise nearly $500,000 in funding.
The other reason was Impact’s aim to be a launch pad for closing the skills and racial wealth gap in the community. Over the year, Impact has hosted a number of events surrounding racial and equity issues and using technology to address it, including the #HacktheCulture social innovation hackathon. It has also recently partnered with Capital One and Paul Quinn College drive more inclusion and representation in the local scene.
The grant funding will help Impact further that mission. The organization is planning to use the new funds to kick off a $10 million capital model that will focus on flexible integrative investments in underrepresented founders that aren’t bound by credit scores and collateral.
The grant awarded to Impact Ventures by The Dallas Foundation will allow us to… fund undercapitalized minority-owned businesses that increase household income, create local jobs and close a 228-year wealth gap right here in North Texas,” said Benjamin Vann, CEO at Impact Ventures, in a statement.
With NPower Texas’ mission of training veterans for careers in tech and Per Scholas’ mission to do the same for people from underrepresented communities, the two organizations are teaming up for a new endeavor with the $10,000 funding. Called the Help Desk, it will connect students from the organizations with professional development and work at local nonprofits to help them gain experience and build their resumes during the pandemic.
The AES Literacy Institute also plans to use the Pegasus Award funding to educational needs created by the pandemic. The organization has taken its program, which focuses on self-paced training to help people get their high school equivalency degree, completely virtual during the pandemic and has been supplying its students with related tech like laptops and hotspots. The grant funding will help AES help continue to fund those costs.
“For us, it’s really around how do we shift our economy to where we really see this as an equal playing field,” Vann previously told NTX Inno about Impact Ventures’ mission.
