Dallas

Giving Circle Donates $200K to Asian Nonprofits

NBCUniversal, Inc.

It's been a tough year for nonprofits in North Texas, but more than a dozen have something good to celebrate.

The Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women's Foundation in Dallas awarded $202,000 to 13 nonprofits last week. The grants support work in the areas of education, housing, health care, arts and culture, social services and more.

With the challenges of 2020, there was a definite desire among members to rally together to fundraise to help those helping others.

“We are honored to serve the North Texas Asian community alongside other women's giving circles who focus on communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Now more than ever, our collective efforts to provide grants that directly support our most vulnerable communities is crucial," Orchid Giving Circle Chair Cynthia Yung said in a news release.

The nonprofits benefitting from the grants are:

• Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIA): Scholarships
• Chetna: Culturally specific services to South Asian victims of domestic violence including legal services, develop skills in the workforce, and remove transportation barriers they face
• Communities in Schools of North Texas: Chin Family Empowerment Program to support Chin students in Lewisville ISD schools
• Dallas Chinese Community Center: Life skills, workplace equality and youth leadership development
• Heart House: Holistic after school program utilizing trauma-informed care to help refugee children thrive in their new community
• IGNITE: Building Political Power in Asian American Young Women
• It’s a Sensory World! Inc.: Staff training for a program that serves children with special needs
• Literacy Achieves: Family Literacy Program for immigrant and refugee families, and All Have Value: Campaign addressing anti-Asian discrimination
• Methodist Richardson Medical Center Foundation: Breast health outreach, education and mammogram access for Asian American women in need
• Mosaic Family Services Inc.: Mosaic House, a multicultural house for women and children who are domestic violence survivors, and hotline interpretation costs
• The Senior Source: Foster Grandparent Program
• Texas Muslim Women's Foundation Inc.: Peace in the Home - Culturally Specialized Family Violence Program (PIH-DV)
• Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation: Mental health support for Asian immigrant middle school through college students.

The Orchid Giving Circle is an Asian sisterhood created in 2015 to foster philanthropy and provide grants to nonprofits within and for the North Texas Asian community. Funds are raised through individual giving and corporate donations.

"We're just so delighted that five years later and six grant cycles later, we have been able to give out over $800,000 into the community and we have well over 60 orchid sisters supporting our initiative," Sejal Desai, the Grants Committee Chair, told NBC 5.

Desai says another point of pride is the sisterhoods that have followed in support of other communities of color.

"And, I think the other neat thing with Orchid Giving Circle is whereas we're the first at the Texas Women's Foundation. And we're so touched and blessed that becuase of our work, we were able to inspire two African American giving circles and a Hispanic women's circle and they're rockin' in the community in a signficant way," Desai said.

Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women’s Foundation is a group of Asian women who collaborate, pool their resources and leverage their networks to generate community grants that support social change and services benefitting the North Texas Asian community. Orchid members, representing a wide range of Asian cultures, ages, ethnicities and professions, have as their goal to increase awareness of the local Asian population, their community needs and philanthropic opportunities. For more information about Orchid Giving Circle and grants, visit their website or email orchidgivingcircle@gmail.com.

About Texas Women’s Foundation:

Texas Women’s Foundation is Transforming Texas for Women and Girls, empowering them to build stronger, more equitable communities. One of the world’s largest women’s foundations, the Foundation raises funding from a broad base of donors, including individuals, foundations and corporations. These resources support more than $7 million in investments that advance economic security and leadership for Texas women and girls through groundbreaking research, advocacy, grants and programs. Since inception in 1985, the Foundation has invested $57 million in women and girls, including $43 million since 2011. The Foundation’s statewide research on issues affecting women and girls provides decision-makers and lawmakers with critical data to inform policies, practices and programs in the state. Its advocacy, grantmaking and innovative programs support solutions that help Texas women and girls thrive. In addition, Texas Women’s Foundation is an acknowledged leader and advocate in the gender lens investing movement and has deployed 100 percent of its assets - endowments, operating investments and donor-advised funds - in a gendered impact portfolio that yields strong financial returns and social benefits to women and girls. For more information, visit www.txwf.org.

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