I said I was going to write the story and tell how seven women are now 700 weaviing in and out of the makings of A Woman’s Work so here I am back at it. The original seven women gathered around a table with wine and martinis and decided that there were women who were falling through the cracks all around us. Much later I said that we are about catching women and their families when they stumble so they don’t have to fall. What does that mean. Well it has meant that we paid a car payment so a woman could still drive to work and take her kids to daycare and get groceries. It means helping a woman get clothing that is suitable for a new job after being unemployed so long her closets are empty. It means helping a young mother pay rent so she can get her little boy medical care that she would not be allowed if she was working.
The face of A Woman’s Work today is so very different than when we started seven years ago. While the improvements we have made to our operations make us a stronger and better organization, I often long for the simplicity of just getting started. I am excited about the other cities that have started and are startiing similar organizations. In Big Piney, Wyoming they have A Woman’s Work who is doing amazing things for their community. In Greeley, Colorado they started Women2Women and it is helping the women who are stumbling there. Most recently, Lake Havasu, AZ, has started Women With Willpower and they, too, are helping women in need in a timely manner. I think I will jump to now so I can tell this story in a fresh way.
It is now December and we were ready to make some grants. We were ready but no one called! Finally, I called a friend who was signed up as a partner and asked what we were doing wrong? She said it was just too easy. The non-profits were so used to jumping through hoops and filling out paperwork that the concept of filling our a few paragraphs and sending via e-mail and expecting an answer in a few hours seemed “too good to be true”.
Wow – that is something that donors and new partners are still surprised by today. I finally did get a call and it went something like this.
“I have the perfect candidate for you, someone in need, last resort, but there is only one problem…it is a man.”
I said - “doesn’t he have a sister or daughter or mother or wife”?
“Not that we can identify…”
I replied – “well no wonder that guy is in trouble!”
Of course that leads to the question of whether or not we are prjudice to men. We were all comfortable with the idea that women were the vehicle to our organization helping families including men and boys. Many times men have said to me they are going to start “A Man’s Work” and I always tell them that I will be happy to help. And I still would be happy to help…
We pretty much decided that A Woman’s Work was going to happen and we would give ourselves 100 days to raise $10,000. Julie offered her beautiful home for the party and we invited all of our friends of which 40 or so showed up for wine and good food and great company. BUT – within 13 days we had gotten $100 from 100 women! This was a sure sign to us that AWW was going to be a success.
We continued to meet weekly and usually in the evenings as we prepared to let people (at this point our non-profit partners) know that we had money available. We adopted what we knew then to be “best practices” and only had a handful of criteria and guidelines.
One - the recipients must be women. After this was women helping women and we knew they had men and boys in their lives who would benefit as well.
Two- the recipient had to live or work in the St. Vrain Valley School District for at least 90 days. This was to try to avoid con artists who would find a charity in the metro area and show up for money. Back then we were more concerned about being “conned” than we are now because now it is accepted that now and again – it is going to happen.
Three – Recipients must be referred by a donor, non-profit, church or school. This was a good place to start and there would be fine tuning along the way.
Four -All funds, wheter in the form of acutal funds, voucher, etc. will be issued to the recipient through a qualified 501 c3 nonprofit, church or school. This was a requirment as part of our non-profit agreement with the Longmont Community Foundation.
Five - Matters NOT funded by AWW include but are not limited to: Matters that an be funded elsewhere, bail, legal fees for those charged with criinat acts and credit card bills.
Of course we added a disclaimer that said all grants are made at the discretion of the AWW Advisory Board.
First I must say here that none of this would have happened had my employer, The Longmont Community Foundation (LCF), not committed to support this endeavor and in a very big way. They agreed to pay my salary and also to house A Woman’s Work and be the 501 c3 which we would operate under. We got the blessing of The Denver Foundation who is the parent organization to the LCF. So, had the board of LCF not said yes to this – we would probably not have done it or at least not be where we are today.
Back then we knew that we needed help to decide who would receive the dollars we had decided we could raise. We had all served on boards and commissions and committees and knew that our community was filled with really competent professionals in the non-profit arena. What we didn’t know was that they were so used to paperwork that our dream seemed unfathomable to them. As Director of The Longmont Community Foundation, I had the privilege of working with many non-profits so decided to talk to Directors I admired and knew would be straight with us. First, they applauded the idea as they knew only too well that many many women fell through the cracks because of timing or because they had restrictions on how they could help them. They acknowledged, for instance, that they would not have the money or authority to fund new locks and doors for a house where the ex-husband broke in.
Here is where I will spring a surprise on us…we thought in our own start up position that we would be funding “domestic abuse” victims in a big way. Didn’t happen! But I will get to that as this goes along.
Anyway, we did get what we thought was enough encouragement from some very reputable non-profit people that there was a need for this kind of program in our area. So we decided to raise the money – we would aim for getting 100 women to give $100 in 100 days…
Six years later, I feel like I should start with – once upon a time! So – once upoon a time a beautiful red haired lady, Julie, came into my world with the notion that the incredible and fortunate women in Longmont should rally together to help those less fortunate. We met for coffee and two hours later had agreed that there was a need to help women who were lost in the throes of divorce or health issues or transportation dilemmas and probably dozens of things we didn’t even know about. We agreed to think about it and talk to some of our friends and then meet again to decide if it was worth pursuing.
Six months passed and in the meantime I attended a conference in Washington, D.C. where there was a presentation on the power of women in the world of philanthropy. WOW! It was amazing to see what was happening worldwide when women decided to put their money where they had always been putting their time and talent. In Atlanta a group had started an endowment fund by asking 1,000 women to donate $1,000 each to get it going. Hmmmm….
Back to Longmont and Julie and I put our heads together again and decided that we would gather some women together and try to raise $100 from 100 women in 100 days. That was step one. Step two was to find some the other ladies who would go on this adventure with us. What a better place than our own Rotary Club to recruit half a dozen women to make this a reality. Enter Ann, Karen and Linda and some outside of Rotary – Sue and Shelley. So we had a non-profit executive, a realtor, a consignment store owner, a decorater, a jeweler, a property manager and a teacher!
We agreed that we did have the knowledge, skills and contacts to raise $10,000 but not the knowledge or skills to decide who got the money. Ah, but we had contacts! We decided that the focus of our efforts would be to raise money and to work with local non-profits, schools and churches to decide who we could help with the funds. We all agreed that our role should above and beyond everything be kept as simple as possible – raise money – distribute money with the help of professionals!
Next – bring on the professionals!
