VAL BENAVIDEZ, NAYA DIAZ

The Texas Freedom Network

Val Benavidez, President and Executive Director

Val Benavidez is a longtime organizer who started by organizing fellow students at the University of Texas. Today, Benavidez leads the Texas Freedom Network, a nonpartisan grassroots organization of progressive religious and community leaders and young Texans. She is the proud daughter and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, farmworkers, railroad builders and all-around rabble rousers.

tfn.org

YWCA Greater Austin

Naya Diaz, Executive Director

Naya Diaz is on a journey to impact marginalized communities of color and break intergenerational cycles of injustices. Her hope is to create a community that strives for justice and individual as well as communal liberation. Diaz believes revolution starts in the heart and leads into our policies and legislation.

ywcaaustin.org

I Live Here I Give Here is centered around advancing generosity.

Here are some of the numbers that show the impact they have had on our community.

$69 million unrestricted dollars raised for local nonprofits over the past eight years on Amplify Austin Day

35 million actions for good (including volunteer hours donated, dollars given and social media advocacy posts) counted across Central Texas over the past four years on #GivingTuesday

30,000+ donors stepping up to give on Amplify Austin Day each year

675+ Central Texas nonprofits participating in Amplify Austin Day

550 Central Texans trained to be generosity leaders in our community through the Austin Involved Board Internship Program and See Us Give

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

HUSTON-TILLOTSON UNIVERSITY

Colette Pierce Burnette is the president and CEO of HustonTillotson University, Austin’s oldest institution of higher learning and only Historical Black College and University (HBCU). Since President Pierce Burnette’s 2015 arrival to our capital city, she has been a woman on a singularly focused mission: ensuring that any and all barriers to her students’ success are elucidated, deconstructed and, ultimately, obliterated.

htu.edu HEALTH ALLIANCE FOR AUSTIN MUSICIANS (HAAM)

Rachel Hanss Blair is deeply committed to HAAM’s mission of providing access to affordable health care for Austin’s working musicians. As COO, Blair leads HAAM’s musician program development and health care delivery model creation.

myhaam.org

BUILDING COMMUNITY FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR THROUGH POLICY EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMMING

Programming includes education around policing, black art, affordable housing and beyond.

Mission: Austin Justice Coalition serves people who are historically and systematically impacted by gentrification, segregation, over policing, a lack of educational and employment opportunities, and other institutional forms of racism in Austin. austinjustice.org

Central Texas Tortoise Rescue was created to help care for, rehabilitate, and re-home pet box turtles and tortoises whose owners could no longer keep them. They now help more than a hundred animals every year, and are passionate about ensuring each animal has the best possible chance at thriving. texastortoiserescue.com