A Community Grant Maker Recruits Black Donors, Sparks Enthusiastic Support

The Washington Area Women’s Foundation has, in its nine years of operation, already raised more than

$11-million from thousands of donors throughout the metropolitan Washington area, dispersing their gifts to local charities that help low-income women and girls and their families.

The organization has also worked hard to assemble a diverse staff and board that reflect the majority nonwhite city in which it is located — black women account for half of the group’s staff, and hold five of its board seats.

But there was one area in which its leaders felt that it needed help: deepening its connection to professional black women, among whom the work of the foundation remained largely unknown.

Says Jane Fox-Johnson, a board member of the foundation: “I’d talk to my friends and colleagues, and they didn’t really get that the mission of the women’s foundation was to support and improve the lives of women and girls in this community, the vast majority of whom are African-American.”

She was convinced, however, that once the women saw the foundation’s work up close, they would be eager to get involved.

“To be honest, I had to come on the board to learn about it myself,” says Ms. Fox-Johnson, a nonprofit consultant who joined the board in 2000. “Once I did, it became really clear to me that this was a group that really cared about diversity and had a deep focus on poverty.”

Two years ago, in an effort to spread the word about the foundation’s work, Ms. Fox-Johnson and two other members of the 18-member Board of Directors, C. Lynn McNair and Ruth Goins, decided to start a giving circle for black women.

Giving circles, small networks in which friends or colleagues band together to support charitable causes, are an increasingly popular philanthropic tool, and the women’s foundation had already had success with an earlier incarnation, the 20-member Rainmakers group, started in 2002.

But this one, says Ms. Fox-Johnson, would be different: “This time we wanted to do something specifically for African-American women, to give them an opportunity to make a personal commitment to helping women and girls in the Washington area.”

House Parties

The board members began holding house parties, and within a matter of months had recruited 25 giving-circle participants, each of whom agreed to pledge $5,000 over two years. The leaders were flexible, notes Ms. Fox-Johnson, about the ways in which participants could come up with the money. One young woman was sponsored by her aunt, and two more by the Annie E. Casey Foundation; another raised money from her friends in order to give it away.

Claudia Thorne, executive director of Community Family Life Services, a social-services charity in Washington, joined the giving circle. “I’d never heard of anything like that before, and I’d definitely never thought of myself as a philanthropist,” says Ms. Thorne.

Now that her son had graduated from college, freeing her from the demands of tuition payments, she finally had money to give away.

But it was the idea of joining other black women, pooling their resources and deciding together how to spend the money to help other women, that was so appealing, says Ms. Thorne.

“The core values really resonated with me,” she says. “I’ve been a single parent, and you look at all of the single parents in the D.C. area who need help, this just seemed like an exciting opportunity to make a difference collectively.”

Group members spent a full year getting to know one another and deciding what kinds of local charities they wanted to support. “We felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to do something innovative yet thoughtful,” says Ms. Fox-Johnson.

A women’s foundation staff member then helped the new philanthropists develop their grant-proposal guidelines, tracked pledges and payments, and provided other assistance.

Over the past two years, the giving circle has made grants totaling $110,000 to organizations in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, including charities that provide financial-literacy training, mentors, and leadership development to young women, as well as gifts to local organizations founded or led by black people that work with women and girls.

Gaining Trust

While the experience of giving away money together has been rewarding for the women involved, the giving circle has also reaped fruits for the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, which provides staff members to help guide the giving circle.

One circle member, Sandra Brock Jibrell, who recently retired as the director of civic investments at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, has joined the Washington group’s board.

“The giving circle has earned us trust in the African-American community,” says Ms. Fox-Johnson. “People can see that this organization walks the walk.”

But the giving circle has done more than just raise the profile of the women’s foundation among a key constituency. Charity leaders are also convinced that their efforts are helping to create a new generation of black philanthropists.

A survey of the women in the black women’s giving circle revealed that 72 percent were giving more money to other organizations as a result of their participation. “That was one of the really pleasant surprises,” says Marjorie Sims, interim president of the foundation. “The women themselves have a greater sense of their philanthropy and the needs of the community. They’ve really risen to the occasion to give more.”

As for Ms. Thorne, she sees herself in a new light. “I definitely consider myself a philanthropist now,” says Ms. Thorne, who is co-chair of the giving circle. In response to interest in the circle, the members have decided to open up participation to any black woman who wishes to join. They now allow people to join by donating as little as $1,000 over two years, while asking women who can afford to give more to do so.

“I’ve been so touched and moved and inspired by this whole experience,” says Ms. Thorne. “I talk about it all of the time.”