WIP Strategic Plan 2025-2027: Launch and Implementation | |
After months of thoughtful study, analysis, and collaboration, the Women in Philanthropy (WIP) Strategic Planning Retreat Team is proud to unveil the WIP Strategic Plan for 2025. Developed with guidance from the USCB Center for Strategic Planning, this plan is the product of dedication from my thoughtful and creative teammates: Colleen Beach, Debbie Cahoon, Dee Colello, Lesley Gilbert, Gigi Maxfield, Margaret McManus, Mary Noonan, Vicki Olson, and Pamela Stone.
The plan is built around three powerful and interconnected themes: Growth. Participation. Education.
At its April 9 meeting, the WIP Advisory Board officially approved the plan for implementation. To read the Strategic Plan 2025-2027 outline, Click Here
Join Us for the Strategic Plan Webinar
📅 Today – April 29
🕓 4:00 PM
📍 Hosted by WIP Member Janet Porter
Members of the Strategic Planning Team will present the plan and discuss its potential impact on WIP’s future. A Q&A session will follow the presentation. Email invitations have been sent to all WIP members with link to webinar. Here is the link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81482069045
Strategic Goals & Implementation Teams
To bring this plan to life, four working groups have been formed, each focused on one or two key goals. Each group is actively seeking new members to bring diverse talents and perspectives. If you are interested in joining a team, please contact the team lead. We’ve highlighted some areas where we need special skillsets but all are welcome to participate.
Increase Funding for Grants, Outreach, and Education
-
Team Lead: Lesley Gilbert (lcg1687@aol.com)
-
Seeking: Members with backgrounds in development, fundraising, or finance.
Grow Membership to 250 by July 2027 & Boost Participation
-
Team Leads: Kaye Black (kblackhhi@gmail.com) and Margaret McManus (sandcrab1960@gmail.com)
-
Seeking: Members from across all communities for broad representation and a member with a legal background for governance issues.
Develop a Comprehensive Communications Plan
Build an Education Plan on Philanthropy & Community Issues and Launch a Youth Philanthropy Committee
-
Team Lead: Pamela Stone (pamelastoneglobal@gmail.com)
-
Seeking: Members with educational or philanthropic expertise and members who have partnered with youth groups.
What’s Next?
Once teams are fully formed, they will begin meeting to assign responsibilities and establish timelines. An implementation tracking tool—designed by USCB—will help monitor progress. Updates will be shared regularly at Advisory Board meetings and in the monthly WIP newsletter.
This is an exciting time for WIP, and we look forward to achieving meaningful community impact together!
| | | Join Us For the WIP Annual Grants Luncheon! | | |
Please Join us for WIP’s Annual Grants Award Luncheon on May 20! Tickets are $45 per person and the registration deadline is May 9. To register, Click Here.
The Buffet Luncheon begins promptly at Noon with a Meet and Greet from 11:00-11:45 to mingle with members, guests, and the inspiring 2024 Grant Awardees.
Please consider bringing guests! If you have mobility issues and need help with the buffet line, or if you would like to be seated at a Gathering Table reserved for new members and attendees who would like to join a table, please let Lisa Hodge know in advance.
| | WIP's Kaye Black Wins Community Impact Award | | |
On March 26, at CFL's Annual Community Meeting, Kaye Black was announced as the recipient of the Joan and Wade Webster Community Impact Award. The award "recognizes an individual within CFL's four-county service territory that has made a significant impact on the quality of life in the Lowcountry." Kaye received two nominations for the award, including one from longtime friend and WIP member Mary Stuart Alderman. Below is Mary Stuart's nomination for Kaye:
I first met Kaye Black and her husband Joe in 2001 when I was visiting Jack Alderman during the time we were “courting” and Jack invited them to join us for a meal. Kaye and Joe and Jack had developed a friendship through their active involvement and leadership roles at First Presbyterian Church on the island, and I was pleased to count them as my first new friends on the island.
Kaye is very welcoming and inclusive, expressing interest in other people’s concerns and needs. After Jack and I married and I moved to Hilton Head Island, I gave Kaye a copy of my resume and asked her to suggest employment opportunities. She asked if I would be interested in working for her, enabling me to meet many business folks, so my early friendship as a fellow church member grew into an employment relationship.
My respect for her grew as I observed her professional life mirror her life as a Christian. She is very detail oriented and excellent at crafting words to communicate ideas and information – she’s also a great editor! Through Curry Printing, she introduced me to many of our island’s business owners and individuals seeking printing services, and I learned of her participation in the Chamber of Commerce as a past Chair and Alice Glenn Doughtie Award recipient, and of her prior leadership roles in United Way and Zonta.
She chaired the Board of Trustees of the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry and was instrumental in the founding of Women in Philanthropy, which she has continued to champion since its inception in 2003. She has served on the Advisory Board and chaired its Membership Committee for quite a few years, lending her creativity and detail orientation to membership recruitment and orientation programs, as well as membership retention efforts.
She introduced us to SC Repertory Theater and its founder, with whom she had developed a personal relationship, as she does with most folks with whom she did business and invited us to performances at Arts Center. Her philanthropy and generosity benefit MANY different organizations, and I know that her financial support as well as her direct involvement and leadership are invaluable in making our community better for all.
When she decided to sell the building in which Curry Printing was housed, Kaye generously “held it off the market” to enable The Deep Well Project to purchase it through the gift of the major fund-raising efforts of The Rotary Club of Hilton Head Island, of which her husband Joe is a long-time active member. Though I don’t know the financial details of that transaction, I know that she likely could have actualized a higher return by selling it more quickly at a market rate – demonstrating her commitment to benefitting those in need in our community by providing Deep Well an excellent office building.
Although I haven’t worked directly with Kaye in her leadership roles with The Children’s Center and Volunteers in Medicine, I know from other folks how valuable her involvement has been, as she demonstrates a commitment especially to our community’s vulnerable and disadvantaged citizens. I have been especially impressed by Kaye’s hospitality to the many family members who come to visit them during the year and been blessed to get to know her two sons, Joe’s four children and their spouses, their grandchildren and their six great grandchildren, all of whom love visiting “Mama Kaye!” She is a marvelous cook and seems to be at ease preparing and hosting a dinner gathering shortly before or after attending a meeting.
Kaye and I have been members of a Bible study group and of a small group at church for quite a few years and I have been most impressed by how her faith is exhibited in her daily life. She has been a member of innumerable committees at First Presbyterian Church, and is an advocate especially for Christian Education programs, serving as a resource for study materials for small groups. She is a devout and committed follower of Christ and uses her many talents in ways that are to the benefit of her community and those around her as well as to the broader world.
Kaye Black has truly made a significant Community Impact and is a worthy recipient of this recognition.
| | Grants Overview - 2025 Grant Recipients | |
The WIP Grants Committee is proud to announce the 2025 Grant recipients. A total of $148,700 was awarded to the following organizations that addressed the theme: Building Pathways to Long-Term Self Sufficiency.
Beaufort-Jasper YMCA of the Lowcountry - $30,000: The Beaufort-Jasper YMCA of the Lowcountry requested support for providing additional scholarship opportunities to families using the after school and summer camp programs. Currently, 70% of the children in the YMCA afterschool program and 50% in the summer camp program receive some type of financial aid. This grant will allow the YMCA to extend financial assistance to approximately 30 to 40 more families at multiple program sites throughout Beaufort County.
Bluffton Self Help - $22,000: Funds were requested to meet local family emergency needs identified through the Case Management & Resource Coordination Program. At the most basic level, BSH says they know they have been effective in helping a family when they are safely in their homes with healthy food and working utilities. The ultimate measure of being "better off" is finding stability for their clients. “Educating our clients who come to us in crisis about the additional resources available that can further relieve their burden is the start of a path to self-sufficiency.”
The Children’s Center - $30,000: Support to the Children's Center will enable it to defer a major tuition increase for families, specifically those with infants and toddlers. Infant and toddler programs are the costliest to provide and therefore many centers do not offer programming until after age two. On HHI, only two centers offer care for infants and toddlers, and the demand exceeds supply. This results in parents not returning to work, or the necessity of hiring expensive private care until an opening is available. The Children’s Center is improving fundraising efforts to facilitate child care affordability for a growing number of area families.
Deep Well Project Circles Program – $20,000: This program is the local arm of a very successful national program that helps low-income families move from poverty level existence to financial stability. Objectives are accomplished through weekly in-person meetings with families for education, training, mentoring and an evening meal with Volunteers who provide encouragement, contacts, and best practices for solving the individual and family issues and roadblocks. This grant will assist the third cohort of the Deep Well Circles program; “graduation” from Circles occurs when a family’s annual household income reaches 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
Lowcountry Gullah Foundation - $21,700: The Foundation will use WIP support to assist Gullah Geechee families throughout Beaufort County struggling to pay delinquent County taxes as well as unravel complexities of heirs’ property. The Foundation will then work with families toward solutions that prevent yearly returns to the tax list. A series of workshops with area experts and the Gullah community are planned, along with the provision of information, resources and support to enable families in establishing a solid financial base.
Lowcountry Legal Volunteers - $25,000: Lowcountry Legal Volunteers (LLV) is dedicated to empowering women and parents to overcome poverty and create a better future for their children. Funds will be used in the Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Program which offers free legal services to underserved populations, with a focus on issues such as domestic violence, child support, and housing instability. By addressing these critical legal needs, LLV strives to remove barriers to financial self-sufficiency and stability, ultimately improving lives through legal advocacy.
| | | |
How Women Change The World:
Mother Teresa
| |
Mother Teresa, known in the Catholic church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910–1997), devoted her life to caring for the sick and poor. Born in Macedonia to parents of Albanian-descent and having taught in India for 17 years, Mother Teresa experienced her "call within a call" in 1946. Mother Teresa made a huge impact in the world because of her dedication to the poor. Among other things, her Missionaries of Charity opened schools, orphanages, medical clinics, homes for the elderly, and homes for dying so they could die with dignity.
Her order established a hospice; centers for the blind, aged and disabled; and a leper colony.
In 1979, Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work. She died in September 1997 and was beatified in October 2003. In December 2015, Pope Francis recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for her to be canonized on September 4, 2016.
| | | Please remember Women in Philanthropy when you update your wills and estate planning documents. | | |
Women in Philanthropy is a Fund of
| | | | |
