The Foundation

For more than 20 years, Impact Foundation has helped charities build the mindset, systems, and strategies needed to create lasting change. Through practical frameworks, trusted partnerships, and real-word learning, we equip organizations to strengthen their work and expand their impact.

About Impact Foundation

Our Foundation and Philosophy

Founded in Fargo, North Dakota, in 2004 through a partnership between Dakota Medical Foundation and the Alex Stern Family Foundation, Impact Foundation helps charities become extraordinary at improving health and quality of life for those they serve. Rather than offering quick fixes, Impact takes a long-term, relational approach with hundreds of partner organizations — teaching them mental models, frameworks, and a common language that demystifies the work and helps them make better decisions. Impact also maintains a diverse roster of coaches and faculty covering everything from mindset to major gifts to marketing, ensuring partners learn from the best in each field. This simple formula which we call the “High Impact Approach,” guides everything we do at the Impact Foundation from content creation to our own workplace culture. We think that if you adopt it in your organization, it will become jet fuel for taking your charity to a whole new level.

Bold Dreams x Brilliant Delivery x Burning Desire to Serve = Extraordinary Impact.

A Real-World Laboratory for Learning

Over 20 years, Impact has built an extensive network of charity partners that serves as a real-world laboratory — allowing the organization to test and refine its ideas, discard what doesn’t work, and learn directly from the charities themselves. This ongoing exchange has produced proven concepts and frameworks that hundreds of organizations now use to become more effective and, most importantly, self-sustaining.

The ultimate test of these concepts is Giving Hearts Day, a 24-hour giving event held each February across North Dakota and northwest Minnesota that Impact co-hosts and has supported as its year-round training arm since 2008. What began with 39 charities raising $479,028 has grown into one of the most successful and longest-running giving days in the country — with 639 charities raising $30.8 million in 2026 and $257 million raised in total to date. Giving Hearts Day serves as a “Giving Super Bowl” for the hundreds of charities in the Impact network, as they put concepts and practices to the test on this 24-hour day of generosity.