IMPACT’s
Mission
IMPACT Chicago
is committed
to ending violence and building a non-violent world in which all people
can live safely and with dignity. By teaching self-defense, we provide
women and girls with the tools they need to prevent, minimize, and stop
violence. With that, IMPACT Chicago is committed to making its programs
accessible to people of all economic, racial/ethnic, and social groups.
IMPACT Chicago encourages the personal growth of people within the
organization
and supports their creative efforts to end violence and build a
non-violent
world.
IMPACT is based on an understanding of violence, particularly
gender-based violence, as a widespread social problem perpetuated by
imbalances of power and disrespect for others. There is an
understanding that intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality,
age, national origin, and (dis)ability affect how an individual may be
targeted and respond to violence. For more information about the IMPACT
Chicago approach to self-defense, listen to the "Your Chicago"
interview (Episode 5) with Martha Thompson, then Director: www.yourchicagopodcast.com.
Our
key
values
are
that
both
individuals
and
communities
are
responsible
for
safety
and
violence
prevention.
We
believe
that women
and girls are powerful and have the right to control their own bodies
and set boundaries. We also believe that men are and can be allies. We
implement out mission by creating female-male teams led by female
instructors. We work with diverse groups of people--across gender,
race, class, sexuality, age, and physical abilities--and create
classroom environments in which people learn individually and
collectively. We serve women and girls (including transgendered people
identifying as female). We do outreach in various communities, offer
financial assistance to individuals, and offer workshops for
organizations serving low-income groups. For more about the IMPACT
Chicago mission, see our Executive
Summary.
The
IMPACT
Organization
 IMPACT
Chicago, founded in 1987, is a not-for-profit organization, governed by
a volunteer Board of Directors and an Administrative Team.
2013 IMPACT Chicago Board
of Directors
Lisa Amoroso, Chair
Rob
Babcock,
Secretary
Katie Skibbe,
Treasurer
Debborah Harp
Katie Kramer
Martha Thompson
IMPACT Chicago
Administrative Team 2013
Lisa Amoroso, Annual Fund Drive, Project Team Coordinator,
Systems Support
Rob Babcock, Board-Instructor Liaison
Leslie
Eto,
Office
Coordinator,
Registration and Workshop Director
Deb Mier,
Rogers Park Project Team Lead
Molly Norris, West Town Project Team Lead
Jennifer Norton, Volunteer Outreach
AC Racette, Assistant Director and North Center Project Team Lead
Arden Schumann, Social Media Technical Coordinator
Katie Skibbe, Financial Management
Martha
Thompson,
Program
Coordinator,
Social
Media Content Coordinator
Nat Wilson, Systems Support
Amy Winston, Webmaster
We are a
nimble organization. We are mission-driven with clear, manageable
goals. We are efficient, effective, and selective (meaning we minimize
work that does not clearly push our mission forward or is not required
for fiscal solvency). Our mission and programming are at the center of
our work; our organizational structure spreads out responsibility for
work required to keep our mission and programming going across three
key groups: Board/Committees, Instructors, and Administration. For
information about IMPACT Chicago accomplishments, finances, and privacy
policy, please
see the IMPACT
Chicago
Annual
Report, IRS
990, balance
sheet, budget,
and
privacy
policy.
IMPACT
Chicago is part of the national
and international IMPACT community, which has yearly Director meetings
and regular e-mail communications about teaching self-defense,
maintaining
high professional and ethical standards, doing outreach, and discussing
other issues related to self-defense and organizational
development. Additional information about IMPACT International can be
found here.
IMPACT
programs provide women and girls with an
opportunity to learn and practice prevention, assessment, verbal
boundary
setting, and physical self-defense skills in simulated scenarios with a
padded attacker. The physical fighting skills women learn are skills of
last resort, but many women report that learning to knock someone out
opens
up possibilities and confidence in making peaceful choices for dealing
with violence as well as simultaneously enhancing freedom and
safety.
IMPACT
Chicago’s programs
are taught by highly trained instructors. Additional information about
our instructors is available on our IMPACT
Instructors page.
For
additional information
about IMPACT Chicago’s organization or mission, e-mail info@impactchicago.org
or call 773-561-9000.
Research
and
Statistics
Newspapers and
television
continually bombard us with stories and statistics that bespeak terror
and fear:
- Almost
one-third
of
women
in
the
workplace
and
85%
of
girls
in
school
report
harassment
(Louis
Harris
and
Associates
Poll,
March
1994
and
American
Association
of
University
Women, Hostile Hallways: AAUW Survey on Sexual Harassment in
America's
Schools, 1993).
- At
some
point in their lives,
25-31% of American women report being physically or sexually abused by
a husband or boyfriend (The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns
Across
a Woman's Life Span: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999; The
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of
Justice, Extent,
Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, July 2000).
- About
one-fifth of American
women report experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in
their lives (The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a
Woman's
Life Span: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999; The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of Justice, Prevalence,
Incidence,
and
Consequences
of
Violence
Against
Women:
Findings
from
the
National
Violence
Against
Women
Survey, November 1998).
Fortunately, there is more
to these stories. Women do fight back to protect themselves.
- A
woman who fights back gains
an 86% chance of avoiding the rape and incurs little chance of
additional
injury. Most injuries occur before the woman starts fighting back.
Women
are most likely to stop an attack if they act immediately and use
multiple
strategies, such as yelling, fleeing, negotiating, or fighting (Kleck
and
Sayles, "Rape and Resistance," Social Problems 1990, 37:149-62;
Bart & O'Brien, Stopping Rape, 1985).
Scholarly research shows that
women who complete IMPACT-type programs report increased
self-confidence
and awareness as well as acquisition of a wide range of verbal and
physical
self-defense skills applicable to many real-life situations:
- Women
who
have
completed
IMPACT/Model
Mugging
report increased ability to set boundaries, increased
self-confidence,
and greater freedom in their everyday lives (Ozer and Bandura,
"Mechanisms
Governing Empowerment Effects: A Self-Efficacy Analysis," Journal
of
Personality and Social Psychology, 1990).
- Of
women
trained in self-defense
with a padded attacker and who were attacked after the training, 56%
knocked-out
or disabled their attacker, 34% escaped from their attacker or he ran
away,
6% lost property, and 4% submitted to a rape because in their judgment
it was the safest choice (Mark Morris, unpublished study of 50 Model
Mugging
graduates).
- Eight
hundred girls have completed IMPACT at Santa Catalina School since
1987. Of these 800, 15 have reported an attack since taking the course.
All used verbal and/or physical tools and got away or the assailant
fled (Dean's Report, Santa Catalina School).
- Twenty-two
women
who
completed
IMPACT
were
contacted
for
follow-up
after
completing
a
course.
Of
these
women,
20%
reported
using
physical
skills
against attempted assaults of various kinds within 3-3 1/2 years
since they took the course; an additional 35% reported using verbal and
interpersonal skills to prevent or manage threats. Over 60% reported a
wide range of positive ways the training had affected their lives and
how they managed perceived threats or dangers from purse snatchings to
interpersonal violence (Richard Chipping, London Centre for Personal
Safety).
 In
her book, Real Knockouts, Martha McCaughey writes, "Padded
attacker
courses offer women a chance to experience full-force fighting, as
these
self-defense instructors believe that most successful assaults occur
not
because women aren't strong enough to fight men but because women
facing
an assailant often freeze up rather than fight. Because the 'muggers'
attack
the students at full force...women...learn their defense techniques
while
their adrenaline level is high and their fine motor skills low, thus
committing
the skills to 'bodily memory,' which will automatically be triggered in
the course of an attack."
IMPACT
works.
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