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United Way of Metropolitan Dallas

The Pitch 2026

See innovation in action at North Texas’ most inspiring event of the year!

Join us as 5 local innovators compete live on stage for game-changing prize funding
and the title of Social Innovator of the Year.

  • Wednesday,
    April 29, 2026
  • Starting at 5 p.m.

  • The Pavilion
    Toyota Music Factory,
    Irving, TX

At United Way, Innovation Drives Impact

The Pitch is a night of exhilarating competition, moving stories of impact and unforgettable community spirit. This unforgettable evening is the exciting culmination of our Social Innovation Accelerator program, which encourages the creation of new solutions to improve education, income and health right here at home.

Here’s how it works:

  • #1
    Five finalists from our Social Innovation Accelerator take the stage to pitch their bold ideas to improve education, income and health right here in North Texas.
  • #2
    The competition heats up and the tissues come out, as our finalists share their moving stories of impact and inspiration.
  • #3
    Then YOU and our panel of judges help decide who will walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize funding and the coveted title of Social Innovator of the Year.
  • #4
    All the while, you enjoy delicious food, fun music, networking and more!

Meet Our Finalists

Get ready to cheer on your favorite innovators. At the end of the night, you’ll help determine who wins prize funding by casting your vote for Audience Choice Award!

delmetria millener

Founding Director of #TeenWritersProject
#TeenWritersProject develops the creative, cultural and career path of teen writers by providing writing workshops, publishing opportunities, paid internships and an annual conference that help teens write, get published and get paid. Through in-school and out-of-school programs, they help teens channel their stories into powerful tools for advocacy, self-expression and income.

Christopher Hill

Board Member of Restorative Farms
Restorative Farms is scaling an innovative, community-rooted urban agriculture model to address food insecurity and unemployment in South Dallas. Their replicable farm management system will integrate vocational training, local food production and community revitalization. This “agri-system” innovation will not only deliver healthy, affordable produce to food desert communities but also create paid career pathways.

Dr. Antoria Gillon

Founder and CEO of From Ordinary to Extraordinary
From Ordinary to Extraordinary teaches skilled trades to domestic violence survivors to help them become self-sufficient and improve access to stable careers. The skilled trades are cosmetology, barbering, phlebotomy, medical assistant, certified nursing assistant, medical billing and coding, dental assistant, pharmacy technician, X-ray tech, MRI tech and customer service representative.

Dejanae Parkman

Founder and CEO of Dotted
Dotted shifts period care from a reactive solution to a proactive tool for long-term health. Their app offers period tracking, educational resources and access to trusted medical professionals, all supported by a line of nontoxic period products. Dotted’s pilot initiative will begin in North Texas, focusing on communities where period care resources are limited.

Elizabeth Furrh

Founder and Executive Director of Cooking for the Crowd
Small- to medium-sized nonprofit organizations, particularly those serving underserved communities, spend about 40% of their annual budgets on food service. This strains their finances and drains volunteer time and energy. CFTC provides affordable, nutritious meals to nonprofits, allowing them to reallocate funds and volunteer resources so they can focus more effectively on their core mission.

delmetria millener

Founding Director of #TeenWritersProject
#TeenWritersProject develops the creative, cultural and career path of teen writers by providing writing workshops, publishing opportunities, paid internships and an annual conference that help teens write, get published and get paid. Through in-school and out-of-school programs, they help teens channel their stories into powerful tools for advocacy, self-expression and income.

Dr. Christopher Hill

Board Member of Restorative Farms
Restorative Farms is scaling an innovative, community-rooted urban agriculture model to address food insecurity and unemployment in South Dallas. Their replicable farm management system will integrate vocational training, local food production and community revitalization. This “agri-system” innovation will not only deliver healthy, affordable produce to food desert communities but also create paid career pathways.

Dr. Antoria Gillon

Founder and CEO of From Ordinary to Extraordinary
From Ordinary to Extraordinary teaches skilled trades to domestic violence survivors to help them become self-sufficient and improve access to stable careers. The skilled trades are cosmetology, barbering, phlebotomy, medical assistant, certified nursing assistant, medical billing and coding, dental assistant, pharmacy technician, X-ray tech, MRI tech and customer service representative.

Dejanae Parkman

Founder and CEO of Dotted
Dotted shifts period care from a reactive solution to a proactive tool for long-term health. Their app offers period tracking, educational resources and access to trusted medical professionals, all supported by a line of nontoxic period products. Dotted’s pilot initiative will begin in North Texas, focusing on communities where period care resources are limited.

Elizabeth Furrh

Founder and Executive Director of Cooking for the Crowd
Small- to medium-sized nonprofit organizations, particularly those serving underserved communities, spend about 40% of their annual budgets on food service. This strains their finances and drains volunteer time and energy. CFTC provides affordable, nutritious meals to nonprofits, allowing them to reallocate funds and volunteer resources so they can focus more effectively on their core mission.

Social innovation fuels our community-wide goals

As we launch into our second century of impact in North Texas, social innovation is a key part of our strategy for creating generational change.
  • What is social innovation?

    Social innovation means finding new and innovative solutions for long-standing community problems that are more effective, efficient, sustainable or just than current solutions.

  • Who competes in The Pitch?

    Through programs like our Social Innovation Accelerator, we amplify the work of local social entrepreneurs and implement creative, strategic solutions to longstanding community challenges. Every spring, we celebrate the power of social innovation at The Pitch, where finalists from the latest Accelerator class share their big, bold ideas.

  • Who should attend?

    The Pitch is for anyone who cares about impact—and enjoys a great competition. Nonprofit and corporate leaders will connect over powerful stories and meaningful partnerships. Aspiring social innovators will meet the change-makers shaping what’s next. And anyone who loves seeing bold ideas go head-to-head will be inspired by this exciting, one-of-a-kind community showdown.

  • Why social innovation?

    Social innovation enables us to tap into the most innovative, most effective grassroots solutions to local challenges. It’s just one way we’re driving progress toward our Aspire United 2030 community goals, which include:

    • Increase by 50% the number of local students reading on grade level by third grade
    • Increase by 20% the number of young adults earning a living wage, adding nearly $800M in wages per year to the North Texas economy
    • Increase to 96% the percentage of our neighbors with access to affordable healthcare insurance

Thank you to our sponsors

The Pitch is Just the Beginning

For our finalists, The Pitch marks the beginning of a whole new phase of their organizations, as they leverage everything they learned in the Social Innovation Accelerator—and the connections and funding gained in the process—to accelerate their impact and benefit more North Texans.

Here’s just a taste of how our previous Social Innovators of the Year are changing lives right here in our community.

2025 Winner – Housing Connector

Van Parker and her team at Housing Connector work with property owners and managers to negotiate a reduction in criteria for housing applications, with a goal of enabling more people to apply for and be approved for homes that they would otherwise be denied access to. Since winning The Pitch, the organization has been experiencing significant growth, expanding its partnerships across the community and serving more people in need of housing than ever before.

2024 Winner – Abide Women’s Health Services

Cessilye Smith, founder and CEO of Abide Women’s Health Services, is on a mission to provide culturally informed prenatal and postnatal care to women in Southern Dallas. Abide offers low-cost access to healthcare with the goal of reducing infant and maternal mortality. Since winning Social Innovator of the Year, Cessilye and her team have added services at both their Dallas location and through their Mobile Maternity Health Clinic to serve more women each year.

2023 Winner – Empowering the Masses

Empowering the Masses offers a variety of services to enable Southern Dallas residents to break the cycle of poverty, including a food pantry, job training and certification programs, and health screenings. After winning Social Innovator of the Year, founder Tammy Johnson was able to significantly scale their impact, in part by opening a Community Market that improves access to nutritious, quality food in Southern Dallas.
    “Winning The Pitch has been transformational for me and for Housing Connector North Texas. I am truly grateful for this experience because I’ve learned so much by being a part of United Way’s network. I feel more energized than ever to build a future where every individual and family in North Texas has access to stable housing and the chance to thrive.”
    — Van Parker, 2025 Social Innovator of the Year