Ultimate Impact builds confidence, teamwork skills, and leadership ability through the sport of Ultimate Frisbee.
About Us
Ultimate Impact creates a positive environment for youth to have fun, be active, and build community through teamwork and athletics. We leverage the non-contact team sport of Ultimate Frisbee as the framework to teach communication, leadership, and conflict-resolution skills. Through our comprehensive pipeline of programs, youth gain access to structured play, joyful experiences, and consistent mentorship.
To level the playing field, Ultimate Impact currently provides free, long-term, school-based programming for students at more than 35 Title I schools in San Francisco and Oakland. Ultimate Impact welcomes all youth, regardless of ability, into a safe space to learn, play, belong, and grow — setting them up for success on and off the field.
“Coach &” Model
Ultimate Impact uses a “coach and” model, meaning that all of our full-time staffers also work as youth coaches. With “coach” in every employee’s job description, Ultimate Impact sees stronger buy-in from our mentors and creates consistent, long-term relationships between coaches and students.
Why Ultimate Frisbee?
Ultimate Frisbee (commonly known as "Ultimate") is a fun, fast-paced, non-contact team sport that is low-cost, easy to learn, and can be played anywhere. Played with a disc, or Frisbee, Ultimate combines the nonstop movement, sprinting, and athletic endurance of soccer with the aerial passing skills of football. Played on grass or sand, Ultimate is a fast-growing sport, with an estimated 5 million current and former players in the US and more than 80,000 in the Bay Area. Ultimate is one of the few sports played at a high level in a co-ed format, along with women’s and men’s divisions..
Guided by Spirit of the Game (SOTG)—a self-officiating model that teaches communication—Ultimate Frisbee requires players to be accountable, call their own fouls, and resolve conflicts during practice and gameplay. An essential aspect of Ultimate Frisbee, SOTG fosters mutual respect and trust among players.
The Power of Team Sports
The benefits of physical activity and sports for youth have been widely documented. Children who are more physically active demonstrate better focus and higher scholastic achievement, while sports improve children’s physical, social, and emotional well-being.
However, access to physical education and organized sports are highly dependent on zip code and household income. In public schools, physical education classes are often eliminated due to financial and academic pressures. Meanwhile, playing organized sports outside of school is cost-prohibitive for many families.
Ultimate Impact addresses unequal access to sports participation by providing consistent, structured play and reliable coaching and encouragement.