One night a year, Idaho girls are in the room.
Not watching a livestream. Not reading about it afterwards. In the room, at the table, while the women who did it first are at the podium.
What it actually is
Designed the way a game is.
From the red carpet on the way in to the last paddle raise of the night, every part of the evening is built for you to be in it rather than watching it. A spirit tunnel of student-athletes. A live scoreboard. Heat on Your Feet™ under the tables. Auction games played in the room rather than announced at it.
Three hundred and eight tickets sold out last February, and forty student-athletes were seated among those guests as guests of the Foundation. Not at a side table — in the room, at the tables, next to the people funding their seasons.
What people describe afterwards is never the food or the speeches. It is a girls’ soccer team walking into a place they had plainly never been before, not quite sure they were allowed to be there, and staying anyway. It is a row of girls leaning over the balcony rail with their eyes wide.
And it is that one of the women on the stage — a Rhodes Scholar — had played college soccer in Idaho a few years earlier. Somewhere in that team, a girl was deciding it could be her.
February is chosen. We held the first gala on National Girls & Women in Sports Day itself. February 3, 2027 is the fortieth anniversary of that day, and this year we have moved a week later on purpose — so there is a full week of events running from the anniversary to the gala rather than a single evening.
That is what a ticket buys and what a sponsorship funds. Proceeds go to iWIN Sports — grants that pay a registration fee, camps, clinics, and the programs that keep girls in sport past the age most of them quit — and to the operations that deliver them, which at our size means one salary.
The goal is for every gala dollar to go directly to grants, programs and scholarships. Building the endowment is how we get there.
Last February
The first one sold out.
“I think the event is great, but what’s better is the purpose of the event.”Tara VanDerveer · 2026 keynote · quoted in the Idaho Press, February 5, 2026
The awards
Six honors, and each one names something specific.
Most galas have honorees. Very few have a structure. Each of these recognizes a different way somebody moves girls and women forward in sport — and every one of them was given for the first time in 2026.
The Legend Award
For an athlete whose record changed what an Idaho girl believes is available to her.
2026 · Kristin Armstrong — three Olympic gold medals in cyclingThe Courage to Lead Award
For someone who kept going when the route they were on disappeared, and then built a new one for others.
2026 · Muffy Davis — Paralympic champion and legislatorThe Trailblazer Award
For the person who was first through a door, and then held it open.
2026 · Jennifer Swindell — Idaho’s first female sports editorThe IX Stories Award
For a young woman whose path through sport is the argument this Foundation exists to make.
2026 · Kaya Evans — Rhodes Scholar, College of Idaho soccerThe Team of Allies Award
For someone building access from inside a school, a club or a community, usually without recognition.
2026 · Mary Karol Taylor — teacher-librarian, founder of Nations United SoccerScholar-Athlete of the Year
The Alice & Charles Taylor award, to a LEAD Scholar who embodies all four letters.
2026 · Ava Johnson — Mountain Home, now at Boise State2027
This year’s honorees and keynote.
Announced through the autumn, one at a time. Sponsors and ticket holders hear first.
Six honorees, revealed one at a time
Nominations are open, and anyone can submit one. If there is somebody in Idaho who has quietly moved girls and women forward in sport and never been thanked for it — a coach, a teacher, an official, a parent who drives the van — we would like to hear about them.
The 2027 keynote
Last year Tara VanDerveer stood at this podium — Naismith Hall of Fame coach, three national championships, Olympic gold, and the woman whose first head coaching job was at the University of Idaho. We are working on this year’s.
Sponsorship
Autumn is when this gets decided.
Ten levels, from $1,000 to $35,000, every one of them through Sideline Supporter including a table of ten. Corporate budgets close in the autumn, so this is the window. A sponsorship here is not a logo on a banner: partners take the scoreboard, the athlete walkout, the arrivals wall and the award presentations. Forty-two named activations, assigned first come, first served, plus year-round credit that outlives the evening.
Presenting rights and category exclusivity. Two activations, one of them marquee, an award presentation, a premium table for twelve, a full-page ad, and right of first refusal for 2028.
Title rights across the evening and a speaking moment during the program. Two activations, or one plus an award. Premium table for twelve, full-page ad, right of first refusal for 2028.
Feature rights in the program, on screen and from the stage. One activation plus an award presentation, a premium table for twelve, and a half-page ad.
Underwrites the Change Make*Hers Hall of Fame, a permanent display launching this year. Every past honoree and their guest seated at your table, hosted by you, with your own premium table of ten alongside. Twenty-two seats, and the class photograph.
- Team Captain$10,000Table of ten, on stage, an activation or an award, half-page ad, six VIP passes.
- Starter$7,500Table of ten, an activation or an award, quarter-page ad, four VIP passes.
- Rising Star$5,000Where choice of a gala activation or an award presentation starts. Table of ten, quarter-page ad, four VIP passes.
- Impact Player$3,500Table of ten plus five young people, an activation, eighth-page ad, two VIP passes.
- Sideline Supporter$2,500Table of ten and two VIP passes.
- Fan Favorite$1,000Five young people in the room who could not otherwise be there, and recognition from the stage.
Two dates decide what your sponsorship looks like. December 12 is the artwork deadline for the printed program: confirm by then and you are in print. January 15 is when sponsorship closes, or earlier if a level fills. Commitments after December 12 still receive full on-screen, stage, website and activation recognition, but printed placement cannot be guaranteed.
Each of the six awards is presented by a sponsor. In 2026 those were Saint Alphonsus, Trak Software, J.R. Simplot Company, TOK Commercial, Stoltz Marketing Group and You Are More — each named from the stage as the award was given, and again in every piece of coverage that followed. Six slots, one per award, and they are the most visible thing on the night.
What a sponsor actually gets
Quarterly reporting on the specific things your money funded — a grant cohort, a camp cycle, a scholarship — rather than a name on a general fund. When somebody in your organization asks in June what the sponsorship bought, you will have an answer.
And what your people get
A table in a room with forty student-athletes. Networking Collective memberships for a women’s employee resource group. A Changemakers Circuit session for your staff. Benefits your employees consume, not just a logo.
Program advertising on its own
Full page $1,500, half page $850, quarter page $500, eighth page $300. Send a logo and your text and we will lay it out at no charge. Hall of Fame and MVP already include a full page, All-Star and Team Captain a half, Starter and Rising Star a quarter, Impact Player an eighth.
Nothing here is a commitment
Tell us roughly what you are considering and we will come back with what your number funds and which activations are still open, before anybody signs anything. By email, or fifteen minutes on the phone is usually enough.
Tickets
Individual seats and tables.
- Tables of tenOn saleAvailable now, through Auction Frogs. Every sponsorship level through Sideline Supporter includes one.
- Individual seats, early bird$175November 10 through December 31, 2026.
- Individual seats, general$200January 1 until sales close on February 1, 2027.
- SponsorshipJan 15Closes January 15, or earlier if a level fills. Artwork for the printed program is due December 12.
The first one sold out at 308. This room is built for 500, and the only number any of us is really trying to move is how many young people are in it.
Attending as a student, a coach, or a school group? Write to us. There were forty student-athletes in the room last year and none of them paid for a ticket.
Or work it rather than attend it. Fifty people made the first one happen: setup, registration, the auction, teardown. It is the best seat in the house and it costs nothing. Volunteer for February 10 →, or see everything else we need hands for.
February 10, 2027
Somewhere in that room will be a girl deciding it could be her.
Working out that the distance between where she is sitting and where those women are standing is shorter than anybody told her. That is the whole event, and everything else is dinner.
The Change Make*Hers Gala powered by iWIN Sports · The Taylor LEAD Foundation · 501(c)(3) · EIN 99-2465893