Ingage Partners Social Impact Fund awarded $15,500 and 200 hours of volunteer time to iSPACE in the first Ingage Partners Social Impact Fund Award. IKRON and Women Helping Women also presented to the group of Ingage employees who funded the Social Impact Fund. All who presented received $1,000 and increased visibility to this group of socially responsible technology and business professionals.
iSPACE will use the funds and volunteer hours for curriculum development for the IGNITE Engineering program. iSPACE’s IGNITE Engineering is a program intended for kindergarten through sixth grade students to learn to become problem solvers while learning science, technology, engineering and math concepts and skills. IGNITE Engineering uses LEGO Education kits and iSPACE highly acclaimed curricula to immerse students in the role of engineer. iSPACE’s goal is to provide hands-on, minds-on STEM experiences to underserved students in the urban core to test whether early and frequent exposure to these educational tools, with both guided and free build time, can influence their interest in STEM careers.
Linda Neenan, Executive Director of iSPACE stated “iSPACE is honored to be the recipient of the inaugural Ingage Social Impact Fund grant. We felt it was an excellent exercise to hone our message down to a 15 minute presentation and develop a compelling deck to accompany it. This made us think about our specific programs and the impact each one has and then convey that in the most efficient way possible. This was a tremendous opportunity for us and your investment in iSPACE validates our efforts to develop career pathways for our region’s future STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workforce. As well as the generous financial gift, we are especially proud to have Ingage employees partner with us by contributing 200 volunteer hours.”
Ingage Partners created the Social Impact Fund in Fall 2015 and encouraged employees to consider donating a portion of their Paid Volunteer Time Off (PVTO) into the fund. Ingage matched dollars and employees had the opportunity to interact with the presenters from each nonprofit.
When asked why they created this model Michael Kroeger and Kelly Dolan stated, “we were looking for a way to engage more members of the company in understanding the opportunities within local non profits and empowering them to impact a non profit in a greater way.”
Ingage Partners is a local Management and IT Consulting firm offering services in a variety of areas including project management, business analysis, and application development. Ingage is a Certified B Corp (the area’s first certified social enterprise), using business as a vehicle for positive change in the community. Ingage donates a minimum of 25% of profits to charitable organizations - the purpose in the company’s "Consulting with Purpose" business model.