We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carey Goldstein. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carey below.

Hi Carey, thanks for joining us today. Looking back on your career, have you ever worked with a great leader or boss? We’d love to hear about the experience and what you think made them such a great leader.

I worked in one particular school for 15 years as a School Counselor. It was my first job after getting my Master’s Degree and my first job in a school. I didn’t feel confident in my first year and knew I had a big learning curve ahead of me. My boss, the Middle School Principal, was the perfect boss for me at that time in my career. He had total confidence in me, gave me a lot of leeway to do what I thought was best, and sold me to students, teachers, and parents as if I were the best school counselor ever to work in a school. At the same time, he checked in with me and pushed back on me while requiring that I push back on him. It was the first time I had a boss who encouraged me to speak up and to disagree with him when I felt he was wrong. That did not mean he changed his mind or did what I said but I always felt heard and trusted. It made me understand and appreciate real feedback, positive and negative/constructive feedback makes us all better as long as it is honest. When we are permitted to give honest feedback it helps us learn how to do it in a kind and productive way. It makes us all better and I think he helped make me a great school counselor.

Carey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Impact100 is a women’s collective giving circle that asks 100 women to give $1,000 to create $100,000 grants, I became the Co-Founder of Imapct100 Louisville, a collective giving nonprofit with my mom in the fall of 2019. I was still working in education and consulting but had more time since I wasn’t working day to day in a school setting. My mom, Dani Kannapell, approached me about the concept of women pooling funds to make large grants to local nonprofits. She had heard about Impact100 from friends in Florida where she lives half the year. I had started to feel as if I wasn’t giving enough and wanted to get more involved but didn’t really know how or where. When I actually listened to my mom telling me the concept I thought it was great and simple. And while the idea is simple, pulling it off each year is a lot of work. We started with our friends and friends of friends to help us on this journey and after our big giveaway in 2024, we will have given away over two million dollars in just five years and have over 500 women who give $1,000 annually.

There are two things I am most proud of with Impact100 Louisville. I am proud of the network of women that we have grown. We are an entirely volunteer-run organization and manage over 500 members and a budget of between $500,000 and $1,000,000 in a given year. We have a lot of women helping in a variety of ways. I am also incredibly proud of the relationships built with the nonprofits that receive one of our grants. We are partners with them and do what we can to support them and/or connect them with others who can offer support beyond what we can do. It has been amazing to watch the ripple effect of the nonprofits that receive a grant and how that translates to other opportunities.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We treat philanthropy differently. We keep it simple. We are an egalitarian group, every member has the same number of votes for the grant recipients. We do have a board that guides and makes decisions but members have the opportunity to provide input and since we are a volunteer-run organization members have leadership opportunities.

We are thorough with our process but we push to be more trust-based with the nonprofits. Nonprofits appreciate our efforts to simplify the process for them. So many nonprofits are stretched thin and don’t have full-time grant writers.

We do not put on large social events such as a gala that asks our members to pay a large amount of money on top of their $1,000 for a social event. We have a variety of social events to help members connect and they vary in price from free to $50 none are required and all are an opportunity to bring friends to hear more about the organization, network, and socialize. Impact100 feels authentic and accessible even with a $1,000 donation and that has helped build our reputation.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Keeping the “why” in front of your people is a morale boost every time. We all work better when we remember why we are doing what we are doing. One of the best things we do for morale is to invite the nonprofits to continue to tell us their story. We have them join us for updates at our member social events. This does so many things for both sides of the grants. It keeps our members invested in the process, hearing the progress of these amazing nonprofits selfishly feels good and makes us want to continue to give. It also helps the nonprofit stay in front of a group of women who feel connected to them and want to continue to help them. Relationships continue to build and more good gets done.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.impact100louisville.org
• Instagram: impact100louisville
• Facebook: Impact 100 Louisville

Image Credits

Weasie Gaines Photography