“I feel so lucky to do a job that I love and gives me purpose,” Grace Hou told a roomful of fellow philanthropy professionals during the Chicago Women in Philanthropy (CWIP) Annual Luncheon in March. Hou, president of Woods Fund Chicago, is the 2018 Making a Difference Honoree and was keynote speaker during the luncheon.

Hou talked about her early life as the daughter of immigrant parents from Taiwan. The family moved to Chicago when she was eight and she has worked her whole life in Chicago, which gives her a “shared history” with many of her colleagues. “Chicago is a beautiful place, a sweet home for many, but not for all,” Hou said.

“In my bones, I’m a journalist. I like hearing other people’s stories….The only thing that separates us as strangers is story,” she said. That love for story, plus a quest for the truth, guides her, she said. “You have to search for the truth; it’s often unintentionally hidden,” Hou said. She is now the mother of two boys and said she occasionally reads them the young people’s edition of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. She does this not to make them sad, she said, but because “sad is part of the journey to the truth...”