Giving Tuesday - How You Can Help

"I was mugged 10 minutes from my home within a week of moving to San Francisco. I saw so many glowing reviews for Impact Bay Area that I decided to sign up. I was almost deterred because I was unemployed at the time and thought I wouldn't be able to take the class ... Impact is amazing and gave me scholarship to attend. The classes were the best things I have ever done for myself. I have a new-found confidence when I walk down the street because I know how to protect myself."

How to Help Your Community this #GivingTuesday
Help Us Offer More Safety, More Support, More Healing in the Bay Area

"Every single person I have met through Impact be they the staff, instructors and students have been amazing. You bond with the other students and become quite close. I can hear their support in my head when I stand up for myself and they give me courage to fight. After 20 years of putting up with harassment it's awesome knowing that you can defend yourself if things get out if hand. It changes the way you behave and it is actually more likely that you won't find yourself in those situations to begin with. It's one of the best things you will do for yourself and for your safety." - 2013 Impact Scholarship Student

As we get closer to #GivingTuesday, we are asking members of our community - YOU - to help us keep Impact going in the Bay Area. We know times are tough, but we also know how vital the work we do is - and there are so many ways to help:

Amazon Smile: Shop from the comfort of your own home, cafe, or office on Amazon Smile and .5% of your purchase amount can be donated to Impact Bay Area.

See details on Amazon Smile here.

Join Our Indiegogo Campaign: You may have heard about an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign that recently raised over $50,000 to make - we are not joking here - "anti-rape" underwear. We aren't the first ones to say it, but anti-rape underwear is a very bad idea in a world full of bad ideas that purport to make women safe.

Women CAN Defend Themselves

We launched our own Indiegogo campaign to provide REAL safety, confidence and protection to women and girls.

Get ready for the best news - for GivingTuesday, all donations given on December 3rd will be increased by Indiegogo and FirstGiving, so it's vital to get the message out that day. By following our Indiegogo campaign, you're helping to raise awareness that girls and women are powerful and capable of defending themselves.

Donate: It's one I know you hear a lot about, but donating is the best way to directly give back to your community. Thanks to donations, in 2013 we were able to teach over 1,000 students all over the Bay Area - including 160 kids and teens! How many more students can we take in - regardless of ability to pay - with your help in 2014?

Take a class - or give one as a gift this holiday season: It's hard to put into words just how empowering and safe the Impact class environment is, but many of our strongest supporters are Impact graduates themselves. We teach classes for children, men, women, teens, and young adults about to head out to college - consider giving peace of mind this holiday season with a top-rated self-defense experience (PS - we're a top-rated nonprofit, check out our reviews).