Upcoming TPC Events…

Connect the Dots: December 10 (Boston), 12:00 to 1:00 pm
Our guest speaker will be TPC grantee Resilient Coders.

If each member invited just one friend to a Connect the Dots gathering, we’d meet our membership goals quickly and will award yet another $250,000 next spring (because we know that when women learn about what TPC is and does, many join!).

Special Dialogue and Book Discussion: January 10 (Boston), 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Join us for a special Dialogue and discussion about the Pulitzer prize winning book Evicted. Barry Bluestone, nationally recognized authority about the housing crisis in Boston, will discuss how this happened and how it might be resolved.

Check out all of TPC’s Events

The topic of our inaugural Lunch and Learn, a new educational initiative in response to TPC members’ requests, was “Diversity in the Non-profit Arena…or Lack Thereof.” Hosted on October 29 at the offices of our long-term sponsor, Cambridge Trust, the featured speaker was Jennifer Aronson, Senior VP at the Boston Foundation. She shared some startling statistics with us:

• 85% of all US non-profit leadership is white.
  
• 86% of board members are white.
  
• Only 26% of organizations have a succession plan in place, yet 78% of non-profit leadership will transition out within five years.
  

The disconnect staring us right in the face is that the vast majority of non-profits serve populations of color and ethnic diversity, yet these populations are not represented in non-profit leadership.

Jennifer told us that the name TPC is known in Boston, which means we have the power to contribute to the structural changes needed in the leadership within the non-profit world. It is important to change this structural imbalance, not only because it is a moral imperative, but, more importantly, it has been shown that the lived experience of leaders better drives an organization toward the fulfillment of its mission.

The Boston Foundation is working to bring about change by: funding consulting assessments to provide non-profits with a roadmap to help drive transition; doing a landscape scan of consultants doing DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) work that can be used as resources; creating a DEI tool kit.

What can TPC do collectively and what can we do as individuals? See the issue clearly and educate ourselves about it; seek and accept new leadership models (such as shared leadership or even mergers); create a sense of urgency; and focus on impact, not intention.

Please describe ACS in your own words.

ACS operates the juvenile court clinics for Middlesex County, providing comprehensive and emergency diagnostic evaluations for court-involved children and their families. In addition, ACS offers individual and group treatment at no cost to families, as well as education and advocacy services throughout the course of our involvement.

Continue interview with Leah Kelly and Robyn Eastwood

Five TPC Members (Susan Benford, Ruth Isaacs, and Sandy Lawrence and Young Philanthropists Cassandra Trujillo and Leigh Chandler) recently traveled to Philadelphia to attend the Conference of the Women’s Collective Giving Grant-makers Network (recently renamed “Catalist”).

Our members were panelists or leaders of four breakout sessions, and attended numerous workshops to glean best practices from collective giving groups throughout the country. Cassandra Trujillo expressed this well when she wrote, “Very little is written about women’s collective giving groups, and what we do publish tends to be about the social challenges we’re addressing, and not the organizational decisions that enable the model to work, so there aren’t really other ways to get the benefits of the conference.” TPC is grateful to Hemenway & Barnes for its support of the Young Philanthropist Initiative so that Cassandra and Leigh could attend the Conference.

All 60+ collective giving groups in Catalist were invited to submit nominations for grants that were transformative to the grantee, to the community it serves, and to the giving group itself. TPC is very proud to announce that Catie’s Closet (CC) was chosen as a Spotlight Award Grantee, one of three in the U.S. (The other two non-profits honored are Girls Matter: Giving Girls Voice by the Women’s Giving Alliance and Live Fresh by Impact100 Palm Beach).

TPC’s 2016 grant funded expansion of CC’s distribution center and development of a comprehensive marketing plan. Just prior to receiving TPC funding, CC was in 25 schools serving 13,000 students; one year later:

• Eight new Closets had opened.
• 10,000 additional students had been served.
• Over $100,000 had been raised.
• Phase 2 – to scale the program throughout Massachusetts – had kicked off.

Today, CC is in 54 schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, serves 32,000 students, and has a waitlist of over two dozen states wanting Closets in their schools.

We are pleased to say that TPC was honored with a national Spotlight Award acknowledging its transformative grant made to Catie’s Closet.

The impact on TPC has been equally impressive: CC’s liaisons are still actively involved; one liaison introduced CC to the Boston Public Schools administration, which enthusiastically embraced the model; a TPC member funded a Closet, while others have become major donors and gala attendees; one bride-to-be dedicated her bridal shower to collecting personal products for CC’s students; members continue to donate clothing and toiletries; and TPC members volunteered in the distribution center, helping staff sort donated goods and providing the impetus for our Volunteer Days. Indeed, this was a transformative grant all around!

Read a summary of each breakout session and speech from the Conference.