Texas Impact Education Fund

Texas Impact is the political advocacy counterpart of the Texas Impact Education Fund. ²

Background

The Texas Impact Education Fund was founded in 1973 as a Texas-based network comprised of individual members as well as congregations and “governing bodies” of the “Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Faiths.” It views its support for left-of-center public policies as synonymous with “universally held social principles of the Abrahamic traditions.” ^{3 1}

Texas Impact is the lobbying and electoral advocacy counterpart of the Texas Impact Education Fund. It has multiple advocacy teams that work on issues related to voter mobilization, public-school funding, climate change, immigration, and gun violence. ^{2 4}

Activities

The Texas Impact Education Fund is a left-of-center faith-based organization that exists to advocate for left-of-center policies regarding the environment, school funding, gun violence, and weather-dependent energy. It has also engaged in educational work related to “racism,” “poverty,” and “human health.” ^{1 5}

The Education Fund is viewed as a resource for the advocacy work done by Texas Impact. The Education Fund’s board of directors, made up of figures from governmental, educational, and religious institutions, has been described as a body that “provide[s] the political insight and guidance” needed by Texas Impact to inform the latter’s efforts. Its work has been characterized by Harvard University’s Pluralism Project as a way to help “people of faith” get educated in “public policy discussions concerning issues of broad religious concern” as well as to provide them with “training in civic participation.” ^{5 6}

Financials

In 2024, the Texas Impact Education Fund reported revenues of $1,209,943, total expenses of $1,125,446, and ended the year with net liabilities of $125,415. ⁷

Leadership

As of 2026, the Texas Impact Education Fund was led by its president, Beamon Floyd, who was also the director of the Texas Coalition for Affordable Insurance Solutions at the time. Its vice president was Deirdre Walsh, then-director of marketing and communications for Silicon Labs; its treasurer was T. Randall Smith, a past president of the board of directors of Texas Impact and of the Texas Conference of Churches; and its board secretary was Whit Bodman, a retired professor of comparative religion at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. ⁸

Anne Sapp, the retired director of special projects at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), is listed as a past president of the Texas Impact Education Fund. ⁸

As of 2026, the Texas Impact Education Fund’s board of directors was comprised of Dan Brinks, chair of the department of government at the University of Texas at Austin; Matthew Dowd, a liberal political commentator and senior fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center on Communications; Joel N. Martinz, an ordained elder of the United Methodist Church; John Pitts, a founder and managing principal of the Texas Star Alliance; Missy Apodaca, a government relations consultant and lobbyist with the Apodaca Advocacy Group; and Steve Scheibal, a principal at New West Communications. ⁸