OUR HISTORY

In the mid-1990’s, Montgomery County leaders were considering ways to revitalize downtown Silver Spring, a diverse area of town with failing businesses, crime, and altogether poor quality of life. The County Executive convened the Silver Spring Redevelopment Advisory Committee to ensure community input when $400 million was put on the table for redevelopment.

As members of this committee, a small group of concerned residents recognized the lack of diversity in the planning process. These individuals from the general and business community met for more than a year to develop a plan, ensuring that the diversity of the community’s population would be reflected in the life and leadership of a newly-revitalized Silver Spring.

What they found was that the problem could not be solved through recruitment alone: underrepresented residents often did not have the skills and experience to sit at such tables – and actually felt unwelcome and excluded in traditional civic environments. They realized that our diverse community needed new ways of coming together to make decisions, to sit at different kinds of decision-making tables.

The concept of IMPACT Silver Spring was born when these founders developed of a community-wide leadership program, bringing people together across lines of difference for relationship- and skill-building. Residents and leaders came to sit around new tables in new environments that recognized and celebrated our community’s diversity.

Today, IMPACT has grown to sustain a more comprehensive approach to community change, extending beyond leadership. We invite you to read more about our approach.

Milestones and Highlights since our Founding

1999: Founders of the “Silver Spring Community Leadership Initiative” run a pilot multicultural leadership program, which kicks off with 8 participants. This program is later renamed the Community Empowerment Program (CEP) and runs for the next six years.

2001: The organization is renamed IMPACT Silver Spring.

2002: Lasting IMPACT is born as a leadership network for graduates.

2002: Graduates of CEP III are motivated to address the ongoing achievement gap in our public schools. They spark what becomes IMPACT in the Schools, a strategy to work with parents, teachers, and administrators to create thriving, multicultural schools. IMPACT in the Schools first works with parents at Piney Branch Elementary School in Takoma Park and with MCPS to bring Study Circles to many schools.

2004: After two years of experimentation and partnership-building, IMPACT in the Schools launches its first Parent Training Institutes, workshops on parent involvement and empowerment to reduce the achievement gap.

2004: The first “Call to Action” event is held to identify new options for action in the community. A CEP VI graduate transforms this event into today’s Silver Spring Action, first held in 2006.

2004: A Nonprofit Action Team comes together to redefine the relationship between Montgomery County government and the nonprofit sector. In early 2007, this group establishes Nonprofit Montgomery!, an organization committed to the health and vibrancy of the county’s nonprofits.

2005: IMPACT in the Schools runs its first leadership training program for parents.

2005: IMPACT hosts a year-long support group for leaders of immigrant-serving nonprofits, designed to build their relationships and skills on pertinent topics.

2006: IMPACT helps launch the Silver Spring Youth Collaborative, a network of youth-serving organizations committed to a common vision for Silver Spring youth. A CEP VI graduate launches a new youth media organization, the Gandhi Brigade. Today, a group known as Downtown Together continues to meet.

2006: Realizing that there was low participation in CEP among renters, the seventh CEP cohort becomes the first group to be composed exclusively of renters and people who work in rental communities. The following year, the program was renamed Neighborhood IMPACT.

2007: Neighborhood IMPACT becomes a larger strategy to engage, empower, and build leadership among renters. IMPACT experiments with new ways to bring renters together in their apartment communities around issues like personal finances and health care.

2007: IMPACT opens its second location at 501 Sligo Avenue.

2007: IMPACT launches the first Spirit of Silver Spring celebration, recognizing program graduates and honoring unsung heroes through the IMPACT Awards.

2008: IMPACT begins developing stronger relationships with property managers of apartment communities to foster collaboration.

2008: Participants of the Parent Leadership Team produce the Silver Spring Loves Teachers report, highlighting successful teaching in multicultural schools, calling for better relationships between parents and teachers, and proposing a new initiative to transform school culture.

2008: The economic crisis hits Montgomery County, and IMPACT steps up to help county leaders ensure that social services are reaching those most in need. The Neighbors Campaign is born and piloted the following spring.

2009: The IMPACT Network is officially launched at the annual Silver Spring Action event.

2009: IMPACT runs its first school project with all stakeholders involved – parents, teachers, and administrators – to shift the culture of one local school. The Piney Branch Action Team becomes a model for community-based school reform.

IMPACT Silver Spring | 1313 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910
T: 301-495-3336 | F: 301-495-6660 | E: info@impactsilverspring.org

OUR HISTORY

Milestones and Highlights since our Founding

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