IGNITE: Brighter Future Fundraising Walk

I write about IGNITE a good deal because it’s a cause close to my heart, and I also serve as an executive board member for the organization. It’s a difficult time in our history – we were founded with funding from the Seattle School District as a nonprofit organization, and due to educational funding cuts we must now make our financial way independently. It’s now necessary for us to conduct a capital campaign to stay afloat.

To kick off our capital campaign, we’re sponsoring the first annual “Women and Girls Walking Together for a Brighter Future” event, where current students and adults passionate about the cause will walk together on a 3-mile quest to raise money for IGNITE.

IGNITE a Brighter Future Walk
Sunday, June 5th
Nathan Hale High School, Seattle WA
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Please consider joining us – but even if you can’t, please consider making a donation to support my walk or one of our students. Every little bit helps in this challenging time for our organization, and it makes a huge difference to the girls.

We have an over 10-year history of impacting tens of thousands of girls – not just in Seattle, but across the country and now the world. We’ve formed chapters from Seattle to New York State, and we are now working with fledgling chapters in Nigeria. Discussions are underway to form other international chapters in countries like Egypt, Libya, and England. It’s an incredible opportunity to make a difference in womens’ lives across the world – we’re extremely passionate about increasing our reach in the US, but we also have the rare chance to also impact young women who face even more cultural bias than we do.

IGNITE’s model is very cost-efficient in its ability to impact students. As an example, here are some of the costs incurred when keeping the program going – just $500 can keep an existing chapter, impacting dozens to hundreds of girls, going for an entire school year!

Field trip for 40 girls to a local tech company: $450 (includes buses and lunch)
Starting a new IGNITE chapter: $950 for year 1 (includes materials and startup costs)
Keeping an IGNITE chapter going: $500 per year (covers materials and activities)

If you know of a school near you that could benefit from an IGNITE chapter, consider donating the startup costs and being an agent for change in your neighborhood!