Meet Our Team

Mission: 

Impact100 Essex (“Impact”) seeks to engage women in collective giving, to provide transformative grants to organizations that serve a diversity of people and communities addressing the needs of underserved (or under-resourced) communities in Essex County, NJ, and to spur local non-profits to dream big – and succeed!

Impact is committed to developing a diverse decision-making body involving women of different races, ethnicities, sexual orientation, abilities, ages, interests, perspectives and experience, who are reflective of the many communities that make up Essex County, and to issuing regular updates to Impact members reporting on the status of recruitment, outreach, grant applications, training, finances, and coming events.

Steering Committee: 

A Steering Committee will lead Impact, and is responsible for establishing organization policy and ensuring adherence to the Impact mission. The Steering Committee also leads the work of committees managing recruitment, member engagement, communications, grants, governance and nominating, diversity equity and inclusion, and such other functions as circumstances warrant. Each such committee will ideally have two chairpersons who serve for a three-year term.

Two co-Conveners will be elected by the Steering Committee from among the Steering Committee membership (or former Steering Committee members) to each serve for a three-year term. The co-Conveners will be responsible for scheduling and chairing Steering Committee meetings and setting the agendas for each such meeting. No Convener may serve more than one three-year term, however, a Convener may be elected to serve an additional term after a hiatus of at least one year. If a Convener’s three-year term does not overlap with her three-year term on the Steering Committee, the Convener’s term ‘restarts’ when she assumes that role.

Each former Convener will be invited to attend Steering Committee meetings in a non-voting “emerita” capacity for a period of one year following the expiration of her term as a Convener. For each of Margo Greenfield and Helen Mazarakis, as Impact Founders, the invitation period will be extended to three years following the expiration of their respective terms as a Convener. In each case, any invitation to a former co-Convener or Founder to attend a Steering Committee meeting will be extended subject to the discretion of the then current co-Conveners.

The number of members of the Steering Committee will be an odd number of not more than 17, with the actual number to be fixed by the Steering Committee from time to time. The 17 members include:

• 2 Conveners

• 1 Treasurer

• 1 Secretary

• 2 Committee Chairs from each of the following committees (or if any such committee has only one Chair, then one Chair and one Member at Large from that committee):

  • Membership Engagement;

  • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

  • Communications;

  • Grants; and

  • Governance

• The remainder are Members at Large

Nominations. The Nominating Committee is comprised of at least eight members, including:

• one of the two Conveners or her designee;

• one Chair of the Grants Committee or her designee;

• one Chair of the DEI Committee or her designee;

• two Chairs of the Governance Committee or their designee(s);

• two Chairs of the Membership and Events Committee or their designee(s); and

• at least one active Impact member who does not serve on the Steering Committee.

The Nominating Committee will solicit input from the various committees, Steering Committee members, and Impact members to fill any vacancies on the Steering Committee in accordance with these principles. Any Impact member may nominate herself or any other member to fill such vacancy. The Nominating Committee will review all such nominations and develop a list of candidates to fill the applicable vacancies (referred to as the “slate”).

Steering Committee (continued): 

Election. The slate will be distributed to the general members 6 weeks prior to the annual meeting of general members. The election of each Steering Committee member will be approved by a majority of the votes actually cast in such election. Votes will be due and tallied 2 weeks prior to the annual meeting of general members and the results of the election will be announced at such meeting. The term of office of any member of the Steering Committee will begin on the date of the first Steering Committee meeting following the annual meeting of general members.

Meetings; Quorum; Voting. Steering Committee meetings will be held at least 9 times per year, one of which will constitute the annual meeting of the Steering Committee, on such days and at such times and places as may be designed by the Conveners with at least 10 days’ notice to the Steering Committee members. Members of the Steering Committee may participate in any meeting by means of conference call or any other means of communication by which all persons participating in the meeting are able to hear each other, and may vote electronically.

The Steering Committee will be and is divided into three classes, as nearly equal in number as possible, designated as follows: Class I, Class II, and Class III, each of which will hold office for a term of three years. In the case of any increase or decrease, from time to time, in the number of Steering Committee members, the number of Steering Committee members in each class will be divided as nearly equal as possible. No decrease in the number of Steering Committee members will shorten the term of any member.

The term of each Steering Committee member will continue until the election and qualification of a successor and be subject to such Steering Committee member’s earlier death, resignation or removal. Ideally, no two committee chairs (including the two Conveners) will serve in the same Class.

No member of the Steering Committee may serve more than two consecutive three-year terms, however, a member of the Steering Committee may be elected to serve additional terms after a one-year hiatus. In addition, a member may be selected to fill a vacancy on the Steering Committee as set forth under “Vacancies” below for less than a full term. If the remaining period in that replacement term is less than one year, the member selected to fill that vacancy is still eligible to serve for two three-year Steering Committee terms following the expiration of her replacement term.

Impact is committed to a horizontal management structure and consensus-based decision-making standard to ensure flexibility. The participation of at least a majority of members of the Steering Committee (including at least one Convener) will constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at each Steering Committee meeting. At each meeting of the Steering Committee, each member will have one vote, and all matters before the meeting will be determined by a majority vote of members present at such meeting where a quorum is present. In particular, the Steering Committee must approve disbursements in excess of $1,000.

Vacancies. Should a member of the Steering Committee resign or cease to serve for any other reason prior to the expiration of her term, the Nominating Committee will provide recommendations for another general member of Impact to fill that individual’s role on an interim basis for the remainder of the term of such resigning Steering Committee member. The Steering Committee will take up such recommendations and vote to seat new Steering Committee members at the next Steering Committee meeting after receipt of such nomination on an interim basis, until the next scheduled election of such seat.

Responsiveness: 

We will regularly review our operating and governance policies to promote the engagement of members and the non-profit community supporting local under-served communities.