Just One

We know that TPC members are our best ambassadors and the most effective way to attract new women to our ranks. What you may not know is that each year we lose roughly 30% of our active members for reasons including career change, relocation, and retirement. As a result, we must consistently replenish our membership to maintain the same level of grant-making.

This is where you come in.

This year, we are asking each member to make a personal goal of inviting Just One woman to learn about TPC. The perfect opportunity to do so is our Grant Awards and All Member Meeting on May 29. Attendees learn what will be accomplished with TPC funding, meet the new class of grantees, and mingle with fellow members – it is the highlight of TPC’s year. Just One is all it takes!

Check out all of TPC’s Events

Kathy Brough and Anita Saville, co-founders of Budget Buddies, spent some time with TPC Liaisons Nancy Hsiung and Christine Nguyen, describing the work Budget Buddies is doing. Budget Buddies offers a comprehensive program of financial education that tailors assistance to each participant’s needs in a highly practical and sustainable way. Low-income women – who typically have limited, if any, access to the financial advisors available to higher-income households – get personalized help with the specific financial issues that keep them from overcoming poverty. These issues may include heavy debt, problems with the IRS, or poor consumer habits. 

Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to found/work with Budget Buddies. What was your goal/what are the goals of the organization?

Kathy Brough, our Director of Operations, and I founded Budget Buddies (BB) in 2009 after working for several years together on a variety of political campaigns – starting with Deval Patrick’s first race for governor. I had written about women’s finances for more than 30 years, run a marketing communications business for financial services firms, and launched a financial news service for women called PurseStrings. Before going out on my own, I had been an editor at Fidelity Investments and taught in the Maryland public schools. I had also volunteered with a variety of organizations that support women’s rights and helped launch a chapter of the National Organization for Women in Lowell, MA.

Continue interview with Kathy Brough and Anita Saville

For our Grantee spotlight this month, Ksenia Verdiyan interviewed Katelyn Parady, the Associate Director of Justice at Work. 

Please describe the organization and the work you do.

Justice at Work provides strategic legal support to immigrant worker centers and their members, especially for their campaigns to win dignity and justice on the job. We do this in a few ways. Our staff train about 200 workers and worker center staff members every year on their workplace rights and ways to assert them. We make sure worker center members access legal services. And we counsel and advise groups of workers organizing for better conditions in industries like residential construction or seafood processing.

We get asked, “What are worker centers?” They’re community organizations and usually the first place someone in a low-paying job will go for help when something bad happens at work. Worker centers in this region do not have a lawyer on staff. That’s where we come in.

Continue interview with Katelyn Paredy

At the end of January, the TPC Fellows celebrated 2018 with a belated holiday gathering. They reminisced over what they had learned about collective giving during the past year, talked excitedly about their grant teams, and discussed upcoming events, including the Fellows Retreat later this month and a YP Event: Inside Philanthropy in Boston on March 27. Stay tuned… more details to come!