Our History
The concept of Women Who Care organizations began with an amazing woman, Karen Dunigan from Jackson, MI.
In 2006, Karen, a “Volunteer Extraordinaire” had just completed a large capital campaign for Ella Sharp Museum in Jackson. Before her desk was cleared from the project, she was contacted by the Center for Family Health and asked to help them raise $10K for baby beds. Karen was tired. She served on boards, chaired auctions, organized raffles, and supervised bake sales her entire life. She did it all while running a Real Estate business and being the mayor of Jackson. She just did not want to organize and implement another fundraising campaign. She thought about it and realized she must know 100 women who would contribute a hundred dollars each for baby beds.
She emailed her friends and invited them to a short meeting at a local restaurant. It was Nov. 15 th 2006 –opening day of deer season –a perfect day for women to get together-and Karen thought raising money for baby beds was a perfect fit for women 117 women arrived and after hearing about the organization, each wrote a check for $100 to the Center for Family Health.
$11,700 in an hour!
And the checks were made out directly to the organization, so Karen didn’t have to have a 501c3. It was perfect. The women were excited and decided they wanted to do it again—maybe quarterly. They named themselves 100 plus Women Who Care. Since the first meeting, their group has grown to over 150 women. Over the 17 years of their existence, they have contributed nearly a million dollars to local, not for profit organizations.
Cindy Anderson’s mother lived in Jackson and joined Karen’s group in 2008. At lunch one day in 2009, she told Cindy and her neighbor, Wendy Creason about the group. They decided it was a perfect fit for the Tri-Cities and began organizing.
They contacted Karen, who generously shared not only her ideas, but also her paperwork and forms. She told them she knew of 20 different Women Who Care organizations that had sprung up around the country and graciously welcomed them to the fold.
Wendy and Cindy thought of 14 women in the community of various ages who had different circles of friends. They invited those 14 women to a meeting, explained the Women Who Care concept and asked them to serve on a steering committee. All 14 said YES and began contacting their friends, neighbors, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, hairdressers, to name a few.
They were hoping by the first meeting on Sept. 18 th in 2010 to have 100 women but were thrilled when 230 women arrived. They awarded $23,000 to Tri Cities Ministries that night—and it was exciting.
By the December meeting, 280 women had joined. At the third meeting the number grew to 302 members In it’s thirteen-year history, Tri-Cities Women Who Care has awarded over $1,500,000 to worthy organizations within the community.
This is how the system works.
When a woman joins the group, she signs a form committing to support quarterly meetings for one year—four meetings at $100 each—totaling $400/year.
Upon arrival at the meeting, any member of Tri-Cities Women Who Care who has a local, not-for–profit organization, charity or cause they are interested in representing, puts her name and the name of the organization on a card that is placed in a box.
At the beginning of the meeting, three cards are pulled from the box. The person selected has five minutes to plead her case for her organization—followed by five minutes of questions from the large group.
At the end of the three presentations, the large group votes by secret ballot. The ballots are tallied and the members write their checks to the organization with the most votes. The checks are collected and delivered to the selected organization
The meetings last for one hour.
Not only is this an efficient and effective way to support area organizations, there are a number of secondary positive impacts within the community.
There is an amazing sense of power and excitement in the room as women gather to solve problems for their neighbors. Women report they feel as if they have personally written a check for $30K.
Many women are, for the first time, entering the world of philanthropy through this model. “Philanthropy breeds philanthropy”.
At each meeting, over 300 women in the community learn about the needs of their neighbors and the agencies and organizations that serve them.
Each agency presented has an opportunity to showcase its special projects. Even if it is not chosen am agency has exposure to over 300 women. Each agency that has presented has noticed an increase in donations over the year. Many report new, significant donors.
Often women write a check to the agencies not selected as well as the one selected. This simple idea began changing fund raising in communities across the country. People began talking about this simple and effective idea.
This chapter helped women organize groups in Muskegon, Holland, Ludington, Traverse City, St. Joseph, Chicago, Texas, and Washington, to name a few. There are now over 700 organizations World Wide formed around Karen Dunigan’s model Karen, her idea, this group, and the groups forming around the world remind us of the famous quote by Margaret Meade: