As IMG’s ninth annual Leave Your Mark initiative kicks off for 2025, the 2024 winners are excited to share how they put their winnings to use throughout the year to further their global outreach efforts.

IMG’s Leave Your Mark Grant is an annual grant opportunity for mission or social good organizations and individuals participating in a mission, volunteer, or service trip.

Applicants are asked to describe how they're working to overcome current obstacles facing the world and how this grant will help support their global outreach efforts. The applications are then judged and scored, and IMG awards the top-scoring organizations and individuals with funds to use toward their programs and projects.

We caught up with one of the winning organizations and two individual winners from 2024 to see how the funds from Leave Your Mark benefited their organization and the people they serve.

Mission of Hope

Mission of Hope is a faith-based organization that works alongside local leaders in the Caribbean to transform lives through church advancement, education, and food security. Since its founding in 1998, Mission of Hope has provided more than 400 million meals, educated more than 163,000 students, provided medical treatment to more than 760,000 patients, and served more than 3 million survivors through disaster response.

Mission of Hope’s Vice President of Communication & Marketing, Alisha Lowans, said their winnings from the Leave Your Mark Grant helped support their nutrition program in Haiti and provided meals to 350 children for an entire year.

“Right now, Haiti is facing an unprecedented food crisis, and this donation ensures that those who are the most vulnerable can receive a nutritious meal they otherwise may not have had the chance to eat,” said Lowans. “Thank you IMG for the generous donation!”

Individual Winners

Sharlene Cohen, founder of Urban Rewild, used her winnings to support farming education in Kenya by establishing a food garden at Kalesirua Primary School. Her team members were able to travel to the school to help train students and staff on how to maintain and care for the garden.

“At the school, children have already harvested 300 kilograms of organic vegetables and sold more than 250 kilograms of produce to local markets,” said Cohen. “We want to express our heartfelt thanks to the entire team at IMG for believing in this vision and helping this new school garden thrive. We simply could not have achieved these successes without you.”

Barbara Sasser used her winnings toward religious mission work along the Amazon River. She traveled to Brazil with Amazon Outreach and provided audio Bibles and food packs to the Amazonian people. Sasser says the food packs they distributed could feed families for more than a month.

“Our team was able to get the Word of God to so many unreachable who have not heard his Word. I used my grant award with a joyful heart handing out food for both the starving bodies and souls of the Amazonians,” said Sasser.

2025 Leave Your Mark Grant

IMG is accepting both written essay or video applications for the 2025 Leave Your Mark Grant, where two organizations will be granted $3,500 each and three individuals will be granted $1,000 each. Essays should be approximately 500 words, and videos should be approximately three minutes in length.

Submissions should answer the following questions:

• Organizations: How is your organization working to overcome the current obstacles impacting the world? How would this grant support your continued global outreach efforts?
• Individuals: Explain why this mission, volunteer, or service trip is important to you. How will this grant support you and your global outreach efforts?

IMG has insured mission and social good organizations since the early 1990s, providing key benefits and assistance services for thousands of members who travel or live internationally with the purpose of serving others. The company launched its Leave Your Mark program on June 1, 2017, as a way to give back to organizations serving charitable missions.

To learn more about the grant and to apply, please visit the Leave Your Mark page.