A Heartfelt Thank You

We are so grateful to all of you - our family, friends, colleagues and partners - for your wonderful support of us and our new book this past year! Wishing each of you a healthy, safe and very Happy Thanksgiving! Fondly, Sondra Shaw-Hardy, Martha A. Taylor and Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz and Bella.

Joy's Letter to Meg Whitman

Joy Picus

My wonderful friend, Joy Picus from Los Angeles, has spoken for so many of us in her open letter to Meg Whitman.  Joy is a columnist for the Women's Foundation of CA blog.  Do read what she has to say to Ms Whitman about where she might well have spent her money.

Although we do want more women to run for and win political office, perhaps they should consider other ways to spend their considerable wealth rather than or aside from running for office.

They did well, now it's time for them to "do good."  That's what we expect of women because, as the Dalai Lama recently said, "The world will be saved by Western women." You go girls.

Women's Purchasing Power and Nike

Girl Power

After the Tiger Woods debacle, I decided not to buy any more Nike shoes or clothing.  I thought Nike hadn't kept very good track of their star who was making millions of dollars for them as well as for himself.  Although I knew my singular action (I did share my intentions with some others) might not make a big difference, nonetheless, I knew that women's purchasing power was huge (we do make 83% of all consumer decisions) and other women might also be feeling the same as I was.

Peter and Jennifer Buffett

But now I see that Nike is partnering with Jennifer and Peter Buffett's NoVo Foundation for a campaign called the Girl Effect.  The article in November 10 New York Times, "Nike Harnesses 'Girl Effect' Again," made me curious.  So I watched the video clip that was mentioned and was transformed.  I sent it to my granddaughters as well.  And guess what, my next pair of walking shoes will be Nike's!

Congratulations Nike on returning to your successful 1995 campaign theme about girls, on your outstanding video (already it has been watched more than 1.7 million times), and for partnering with the NoVo Foundation.  May women's purchasing power return now to Nike because of its good works.

"Upholding Our Half: Making the Case for Women's Philanthropy"

At last week's book signing with me on the left, Lisa Witter, author of "The She Spot" in the middle and Martha Taylor on the right.

Wow!  What a conference last week in Chicago put on by CASE and WPI who also sponsored a very successful book signing for Martha and me.  The sessions and presenters, including Indiana University's first lady, Laurie Burns McRobbie, were all superb.  I took extensive notes to create some "takeaways" and some of the topics mentioned most frequently were:

• it's just plain "smart" to focus on women as donors because of women's earning potential and their expected inheritance (some will even inherit twice; from parents and from spouse)
• women's philanthropy should be institutionalized and the culture of giving at our institutions and organizations changed to recognize women's potential and contributions 
• more donor education is necessary and it's best to conduct the education sessions with more than one woman
• development offices ought to work more closely with financial advisors who still need to better understand the importance of women and philanthropy
• both internal and external champions within the institution are necessary to develop a women's philanthropy initiative
• crediting and acknowledging women's and couple's gifts continue to remain an enormous problem
• there are differences between the perceptions of women who have earned versus inherited their wealth and perhaps another category is necessary to represent those that don't quite fit either one
• social media is a rising star on the horizon of women's philanthropy
• an important topic to women is children and wealth 

I loved what one person said: women should be encouraged to "pick up the keys to their kingdom," or as one person said, "the queendom."  Anyway, that's what the conference meant to me: learning more about how to make this happen.

Everyone agreed that the new research, "Women Give 2010," released by the Center on Philanthropy and the Women's Philanthropy Institute is extremely important and we recognized the need to support more research through our contacts and our cash. 

As you can tell, it was a great exchange of ideas and a terrific forum for addressing the future of women's philanthropy.  Following are some additional photos I took at the conference.

Kay Chalk, trustee from East Carolina University and Martha

Robin Feldman from CASE; Trish Jackson, conference chair and VP for Development at Smith College; Andrea Pactor, associate director at the Women's Philanthropy Institute; and Eugene Tempel, president of the Indiana University Foundation

Martha and Maureen Dembski, Director of Development, Midwest, University of Wisconsin Foundation