Impact100 DC Member Joan de Pontet recently spoke with Carole Mumin, Impact100 DC founding member and our newest Board member. Here is Joan's recap of that conversation.

Carole Mumin feels her life has been blessed…by a family providing strong values and moral guidance… by opportunities to serve in the White House under three administrations…by an ability to share empowering knowledge with others…by a husband, deeply involved in the Shaw community…by benefactors who made the staging of her play Where Eagles Fly and other productions possible. Carole wants this interview to be more about Impact100 DC than her, because Impact100 DC offers a way to continue the work of helping people in need; getting the word out about critical community-based services; and, the opportunity to work with an incredible group of diverse women who just want to get the job done and better the world. “It’s who I am, a producer.”

Carole came to playwriting and production through several paths, or as she says, “Life puts you where you need to be.” Having served as an aide in the Johnson White House, Carole had returned to her job at the Department of Justice when Ramsey Clarke tapped her to represent the Department during the Nixon Transition. Assigned to Herbert Klein in the new Communications Office, Carole stayed on and as the only African American felt a special responsibility for the Press and African American community to know about the work of ACTION which oversaw the many government volunteer agencies. This translated to her public service television series which launched her production career, “The Prime of My Life,” which was picked up nationally. 

Carole moved to Shaw when she married Ibrahim Mumin, a community activist and leader in the advancement of the historic Shaw neighborhood. Shaw in the early 80s was in deep decline. Carole was coming from her “heady” White House staff position to “the ghetto” and had incredible contacts. He was the Executive Director of Shaw Project Area Committee (PAC) and loved the area and its rich history…Duke Ellington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes… and was planning an oral history of the neighborhood. Carole immersed herself in the project which was the inspiration for her critically acclaimed play, Where Eagles Fly. When she met Ambassador Walter Annenberg at an event at Howard, her two worlds came together. Annenberg, taken with Mumin’s idea of educating the Shaw community about its rich history using song and dance as an engaging element, pledged $100,000 as a challenge grant to catalyze the production. 

Carole is a founding member of The Interfaith Conference and the Organization for Training Others in Need. She has received numerous awards and several of her plays have been produced, including The Lemonade Stand at the Kennedy Center and I Just Want to Tell Somebody at Woolly Mammoth.

Carole knows first-hand the power of a transformational grant of $100,000! She knows the important role that Impact100 DC can play not only with its grants but also with its ability to shine light on other worthy organizations making a tremendous difference in their communities. She has always seen herself as a “servant leader” and is exhilarated by the camaraderie of superbly qualified women with shared vision.