We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Grace Roche . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Grace below.
Hi Grace, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.
The Make Your ImpACT Initiative was born out of a period of great uncertainty for ImpACT on Stage. We had been operating successfully as a nonprofit arts activism company for about six years, bringing our interactive programming into schools throughout the greater San Diego area to bring increased awareness about prevalent social issues, providing students and educators with concrete tools to advocate for themselves and their peers and establish a culture of compassion and kindness. Then, in March 2020, as I was transitioning from Actor to Artistic Director of the company, the COVID-19 pandemic brought our work to a screeching halt. ImpACT on Stage implemented an indefinite pause on our interactive, in-school programming to ensure the health and safety of our team and the students with whom we work.
After nearly two years of no performances, and with little hope that the pandemic would end anytime soon, several of us were almost ready to throw in the towel. As a company, we felt burnt out, worried that there were more pressing issues than those we have long championed. However, members of the leadership team and I felt an intrinsic sense we must continue, and indeed that ImpACT was needed now more than ever.
Over the next several months, we worked with the rest of our team and wonderful Board of Directors to develop a new initiative to fulfill our mission and values in a way that is safe and sustainable in the long term. We considered how we could leverage our unique skills and assets to uplift and empower young leaders. We created a multi-phase application process to help us identify the most creative and impactful ideas for change. We invited members of the community to join our team, as well as former ImpACT on Stage actors (“ImpACTors”) to work with applicants as mentors. We brainstormed, researched, designed, and tweaked until we had produced an entirely new program – one that we feel is better equipped to meet the needs of our community and serve our mission in a post-COVID environment. We are so excited to be continuing forward with the Make Your ImpACT Initiative, and cannot wait to see how San Diego’s youth leaders will foster positive change in their communities.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I joined ImpACT on Stage at the end of my freshman year of high school after my good friend Luke, who was the Artistic Director of ImpACT at the time, invited me to audition. We were both very involved with the theater programs at our high school, and I was excited at the prospect of improving my acting skills in a way that would benefit the community and help inspire positive social change. I totally flubbed my monologue in the audition, but I got lucky, and Jacob, ImpACT’s founder, brought me on anyway. I immediately discovered that ImpACT was different from your average anti-bullying presentation. It was highly focused on interactivity and student involvement; in fact, students were encouraged to intervene or speak up during some of our scenes. As an actor, this posed a unique challenge, but I think the interactive nature of our program was what set us apart from other organizations and ensured that our message got through to the students we worked with. During my junior year, I was promoted to the position of Artistic Director. In this role, I was responsible for facilitating discussions with students about the content of our scenes. I loved working directly with the kids and hearing their ideas and personal stories related to the topics we discussed. My proudest moments while working with ImpACT were when students in the audience raised their hands to ask about becoming part of our cast. Seeing their enthusiasm to get involved and help spread ImpACT’s message was super rewarding, and something that I’ll take with me as we move on from our in-person programming.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think the fact that ImpACT’s programming is so interactive and in-your-face is what helped build our reputation in the San Diego community and helped differentiate us from other organizations. I remember being in elementary school and watching the lackluster anti-bullying presentation that my school brought in. From what I recall, the program consisted of several middle-aged men and women talking to a giant group of students for well over an hour. None of us were paying any attention to what they were saying; it was a complete waste of time and energy. ImpACT takes the opposite approach: we encourage students to involve themselves directly in the presentation, ask for their own ideas and opinions, push them out of their comfort zones, and follow up with our proprietary curriculum to make sure our message gets through. The interactive element of ImpACT’s program is what makes it a truly educational experience, rather than a boring presentation that will be ignored and soon forgotten by students. As we move forward with the new Make Your ImpACT Initiative, we’re involving students even more by allowing them to come up with their own project ideas. I think I speak for ImpACT’s entire leadership team when I say that we’re beyond excited to hear students’ unique ideas to better their community. The application for Make Your ImpACT Initiative will open on March 18th. Students who are interested in applying can visit makeyourimpact.us to get more information.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive shift for all of us at ImpACT, both as a company and as individuals. For me, the pandemic hit toward the end of my junior year, as my peers and I were in the midst of college applications. Doing distance learning completely changed my day-to-day routine and forced me to reconsider what I wanted my adult life to look like as I began applying to colleges. My good friend and colleague Luke had to return home just a few months after starting his journey at Stanford University. Jacob, ImpACT’s founder, became swamped in his career as a journalist and reporter, and Allison, our Director of Operations and Educational Programming, was tasked with helping her college counseling students navigate the uncertainty and disappointment brought on by the pandemic. As schools began to shut down, we at ImpACT quickly realized that we would not be able to continue our in-person programming anytime soon; it became clear that a pivot was necessary. Over the next few months, we pondered several different ideas for how we could continue our work. We considered filming our program, selling our original scenes and educational curriculum to other organizations, and even thought about discontinuing our program altogether. However, as a team, we decided that we must carry on with our work, even if it meant undergoing drastic changes to meet the needs of the community. Developing the Make Your ImpACT Initiative took a lot of time and hard work, but we’re excited about the fact that this new program will allow us continue to empower San Diego youth and make an impact in a post-COVID environment. In hindsight, I think we made the best of a not-so-great situation; this pivot opened our eyes to a new way of fostering positive change.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.makeyourimpact.us/
- Instagram: @impactonstage
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/impactonstage/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/impact-on-stage/mycompany/
- Twitter: @impACTonstage
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcTPXWHTziJL49VKRfkN4SA