Register HERE for United Women in Faith Texas Legislative Event 2026!

UWF Legislative Event Keynote Announcement

We're delighted to announce that Skye Perryman is confirmed to deliver the Sunday keynote at Legislative Event! Named one of the Time 100’s 2025 100 Most Influential People In The World, one of the Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian Magazine, as well as one of The NonProfit Times’s Power & Influence Top 50 and their 2025 Influencer of the Year, Skye Perryman is the President & CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan, national legal organization that promotes democracy and progress through litigation, regulatory engagement, policy education, and research. Ms. Perryman is known for developing innovative legal strategies, building unique communities and coalitions, and values-based leadership.

Dear {name},

This week, Texans are headed to the polls to vote on constitutional amendments, local issues, and various offices including local school boards. Meanwhile, the federal government remains shut down, with concerns growing that key programs like SNAP will run out of funding. The Administration has demolished the East Wing of the White House, and appears to be escalating its military campaign in Latin America.

For Texas Impact and many of our colleagues in the US and around the world, this week marked the ramp-up of our preparations for the annual United Nations climate negotiations, COP30, which this year are taking place in Belém, Brazil. Texas Impact staff members will be joining other representatives of US faith communities at the COP, as we have done for the past 10 years. As in years past, we’ll be communicating frequently via social media and blogs, and we’re delighted to be partnering once again with the Austin Chronicle to provide daily video updates.

This year’s COP is taking place against the backdrop of political turmoil all over the world, and with clear evidence that the goals of the Paris Agreement are far from achieved. Global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhance carbon removals are failing to materialize at the pace and scale needed to keep the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal within reach, according to new findings from the State of Climate Action 2025.

This year’s COP President, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, is a career diplomat with a quarter-century of climate and sustainability policy expertise. He has written a series of letters to COP participants and the wider world that lay out his aspirations for COP30, as well as his insights into what’s worked and not worked in the past, saying “As the nation of football, Brazil believes we can win by virada. This means fighting back to turn the game around when defeat seems almost certain.”

Climate is top of mind for a lot of us right now, but it’s by no means the only issue we’re focused on. In the blog, Kyle writes about what’s next for reproductive policy in Texas. Kat launches a new column to help you make the most of your participation in our Texas Impact community, and Keats unpacks the first meeting of the new federal Religious Liberty Commission, which is chaired by Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. (We were amused to hear Patrick quoting a famous hip-hop trio in his remarks to the commission, but then we remembered the Lt. Gov’s background in entertainment.)

Virar means to turn the tide, and also to turn the ship. It’s a decision to change direction. As President Corrêa do Lago points out:

Change is inevitable—either by choice or by catastrophe. If global warming is left unchecked, change will be imposed on us as it disrupts our societies, economies, and families. If instead we choose to organize ourselves in collective action, we have the possibility of rewriting a different future. Changing by choice gives us the chance for a future that is not dictated by climate tragedy, but rather by resilience and agency towards a vision we design ourselves.

Are you ready to work for change? We’re ready to support your work. Thanks for sharing your time and talent with Texas Impact.

Love,