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GHS Team Wins First Place Prize for Pitch Your Peers Grant

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1st Place Team GHS/STEAM, from left: Charlotte Hallisey, Manon DeFelice, Leslie Cafferty, Margaret Zhang, Kathleen Mendez.

Pitch Your Peers, Inc. (PYP), a local collaborative giving group of over 60 women based in Greenwich, announced a $3,000 grant to Greenwich High School’s STEM Explorers Club, a student-run organization dedicated to expanding STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education across Greenwich schools. The grant is part of PYP’s 2nd annual cycle of SchoolPYP Pitches, where students from across Greenwich-based high schools pitch a charitable cause of their choice to the PYP organization, which then funds the pitches and causes most highly voted on by the PYP members. In addition to the grant to STEM Explorers Club, PYP has awarded a $2,000 grant to the Junior Breast Cancer Alliance and a $1,000 grant to the Stanwich School for a program connected to Abilis, Inc.

“The SchoolPYP collaboration uses the PYP model – where women commit money annually, passionately pitch their PYP peers on the charitable causes they deem worthy of investment, and then collectively vote on where and how the money should be spent – in local high schools to teach girls the importance of giving a powerful “pitch” for a charity they are passionate about in order to win collective funds for their cause,” said Nina Lindia, President & Co-Founder of PYP. “At PYP, our goal is not just giving. It’s about engaging women, engaging our local community, and now with SchoolPYP, engaging the next generation of women to put our collective energy into making our community stronger. I couldn’t be prouder of the students and causes we are supporting this year.”

3rd Place Team Stanwich/Abilis, Crystal Ramakrishnan, Jackie Lubarsky, Janaiyah Lamb, and Cary Rivera, Jordan Silva.

The SchoolPYP program engaged three local high schools to help determine how to spend $6,000 in SchoolPYP grant money across Greenwich. Each team of students pitched the PYP membership their ideas at the annual SchoolPYP Pitch Meeting on May 30th, 2018, which was held at Americares in Stamford. The PYP membership had 2 weeks to deliberate, and then voted online for their favorite Pitch. A great SchoolPYP Pitch includes how the grant money will be used, why the charity needs/deserves the grant and what each proposed service component (volunteer hours by students at charity they are Pitching) looks like. SchoolPYP Grant Champions can and should work with the charity they are pitching, but no representatives of the charity may be present at the SchoolPYP Pitch Meeting. This way, it’s all up to the Grant Champions to stop apologizing and START PITCHING!

Here’s how it works:
● Individual girls or teams may participate, one charity pitched per team. 1st prize grant: $3,000, 2nd prize grant: $2,000, 3rd prize grant: $1,000 (PYP provides all grant funds, no fundraising is required by the students).

●  Schools/clubs decide internally which charity to Pitch. Each charity must be 501c3 certified and must serve the needs of Greenwich.

●  PYP, Inc. provides at least one mentor from the membership per School

About Pitch Your Peers, Inc.

Launched in 2016, PYP’s mission is to engage women in philanthropy and to collectively fund grants to charitable initiatives that serve the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut. The goal is to identify unmet needs in the community and provide grants worthy of impactful change to Greenwich for not for profits. We are committed to promoting volunteerism by exposing our Membership to many local worthwhile charities. We help our Members become more educated and informed about philanthropic choices and meet like-minded women who share their interests.

We collect annual dues in the amount of $1000/member, pool the dollars and give at least one grant annually. Our membership now includes more than 60 women and is by invitation only. The major difference between PYP and other grant funding organizations is that we get the chance to pitch one another to steer the money to our own passion projects. There is no outside RFP process; only members may pitch the causes that matter to them. We are all women who either still work or used to work in high-pressure environments where giving a great pitch was everything. PYP allows us to put those skills to work for great, local causes. By pitching, you get the word out about your passion project with more than a soundbite, to a captive, discerning audience.

In 2016, PYP awarded our first grant of $30,000 to Community Centers, Inc. and a runner-up grant in the amount of $5,500 to Kids in Crisis of Greenwich. In 2017, we awarded our first prize grant of $40,000 to Kids in Crisis and our runner-up grant of $17,000 to Mother for Others. 2018 PYP Pitch Night is Nov. 8.

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