Awhile back, I posted on the 90 super-wealthy women who committed $174 million to causes and charities serving women and children.

Here’s an example of women joining other women at the local level to support such causes. It’s equally important because it shows the impressive power of local giving circles … in other words, we can all do something like this. And we don’t need Facebook to do it!

As described by Claudia Zorn Schafer (formerly of GetActive/Convio):

Hi Tom!
Great to see your post on the Women’s Funding Network, 90 women=$174M last week! I recently joined the board of The Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem.  One of the biggest challenges in developing a broad, diverse group of women is to offer opportunities where all women can be philanthropists.

Since many giving circles have minimum financial contribution requirements, The Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem took a different approach by offering a unique membership model: Individuals can join with a $1,200 per year contribution, or a group of up to 12 women and girls can collectively contribute $1,200 for a group membership. Each individual and each member group annually receives a vote in determining the organizations and programs to receive funding each year.

Since our launch in November 2006, The Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem has grown to more than 700 members, 550 of whom belong to a group. Currently, there are 73 groups, with about one-third of the groups comprising 12 members, one-third having 2 to 4 members, and the final third having between 4 and 12 members. Some women have multiple memberships. 

The composition of The Fund’s groups varies. There are mothers and daughters; sisters; lesbian couples; and members of the local Moravian, Unitarian, Episcopal churches and local synagogue. There are also neighborhood groups and co-workers from Wake Forest University law and medical schools as well as various local businesses. There’s even a group with several women who are each named Margaret.

The group membership model reinforces the power of collective giving and has been successful in other ways, too: In the past two grant cycles, groups voted significantly more than individual members: 92% of the groups voted on the 2008 grant proposals compared to 59% of individual members. And, in terms of our annual renewal rates, women who are part of a membership group renew at higher rates than our individual members.

The Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem just released our RFP for the 2009 grant cycle. We anticipate granting $170,000 to local nonprofits in 2009, including offering smaller organizations an opportunity to compete for funding through a new Grassroots Grants Program to help improve the lives of women and girls in Forsyth County. It’s a modest effort compared to the 90 women=$174million, but we’re on our way to building a diverse community of female philanthropists focused on creating social change for women and girls in our community.

Like the other members of the Women’s Funding Network, we’re concerned that fewer than 7% of all philanthropic dollars nationally are earmarked for programs for women and girls. Thanks again for highlighting the important work being done by members of the Women’s Funding Network.

Best regards,
Claudia Zorn (now Schaefer; just got married!)

Terrific report, Claudia. Great to hear from you.

Tom