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GlaxoSmithKline Announces Nonprofit Winners of 2014 Impact Awards

December 3, 2014 Category: FundingPeopleUncategorized

 

ASAP-Chess

On Giving Tuesday, GlaxoSmithKline announced the nine winners of its 2014 Impact Awards, an 18-year-old initiative to boost the nonprofits that are building healthier communities around the company’s U.S. campuses.

GSK has awarded nearly $6 million to 150 regional organizations, but shifted its focus this year to address community health “outside the doctor’s office,” including factors such as access to healthy foods, recreational spaces, stable family support, and strong social networks.

For the first time, GSK worked with the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey to publicize its new grantmaking agenda and reach potential applicants.

“We decided to partner with a really established nonprofit in the community, and it felt like a natural fit to go with the United Way,” said Katie Loovis, who directs U.S. community partnerships for the global company.

The 2014 grantees, which received $40,000 each, are After School Activities Partnerships, The Center for Grieving Children, Community Design Collaborative of Philadelphia, Gearing Up, Graduate! Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia Youth Network, University City District, and YouthBuild Philly.

“These nonprofits are already good at what they do,” Loovis said. “We want to see them lift their heads up, influence the policy environment, and really look at the larger ecosystems to help more people.”

From our Partners

Justin Ennis, the executive director at After School Activities Partnerships, or ASAP, said GSK’s support would allow the organization to sustain after school programs in 44 public “receiving” schools, which absorbed thousands of students after a round of district closures in 2013.

Working with the school district, ASAP mobilized quickly to “mitigate the effect of the transition on the students affected,” Ennis said.

Last fall, ASAP tripled its total number of programs and brought in new dollars to support them — it now serves 1,100 of the 9,000 students displaced by the closures.

“We don’t want this to be a flash in the plan,” Ennis added. “We’re trying to be the ballast at these schools.”

Seventy-five percent of ASAP’s 400 chess, scrabble, debate and drama clubs are operating in public schools; the rest are offered in community-based locations.

ASAP also beat out its peers to win GSK’s $10,000 Giving Tuesday Challenge, prize money that will connect 10,000 more families to its citywide after school directory, a comprehensive resource containing over 1,000 site listings and after school activities.

“These funds will allow us to do targeted outreach in communities with the greatest needs,” Ennis said.

In partnership with the city, ASAP will distribute thousands of copies to families in the 22nd Police District, which has the greatest incidence of youth violence in the city, according to the organization.

Image c/o GSK, Featured image by Generocity.org

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