Vanessa Perez
Executive Director at Time for Change Foundation
Few nonprofits are doing work as meaningful as the Time for Change Foundation—a California-based organization which helps to support disenfranchised families and low-income individuals through a wide variety of strategies and programs. By providing housing resources and other evidence-based support programs, the nonprofit is empowering people to be more self-sufficient within their own communities, as well as the greater world.
What motivates you to pursue this kind of philanthropy? My motivation comes from knowing I’m fulfilling my life purpose. Knowing that the work I’m doing is bigger than me! Seeing the transformation that these women go through from the moment they start our program to the time they become self-sufficient goes beyond words.
Best advice for someone looking to give back and get involved in their community: Know your why! Find a cause you’re passionate about and show support in more than one way. This is the type of work that takes commitment, dedication and passion. There will be good and bad days, but when you remember your why, you’ll always reap the benefit of giving back.
What impact do you most hope to leave on the world? At Time for Change Foundation, we don’t recycle homelessness, we end it! I want to leave people knowing that we gave our all to create innovative pathways that end homelessness, give women a voice and their identity back and, most importantly, give children their mothers back.