Women in Philanthropy - June 2025 Newsletter

WIP Member News

June 2025

Our Vision

Making a difference in the Lowcountry through the power of collective giving.

Mission Statement

Through a woman’s unique lens, we will:

· Promote the power of collective giving

· Engage and inspire women along their philanthropic path

· Support new approaches to address community needs

Advisory Board

Lesley Gilbert

Chair

Dedria Cruden

Vice Chair

Liz Castrillon

Finance Chair

Mary Stuart Alderman

Governance Chair

Carole Galli

Education Chair

Vicki Olson & Stephanie Santos

Events Chair

Pamela Stone

Grants Chair

Kaye Black

Membership Chair

Gigi Maxfield

Communications Chair

Peaches Peterson

Member-at-Large

Upcoming WIP Events

Mark Your Calendar and Save The Dates! WIP has some exciting events in the works for 2025-26!

October 8

WIP Fall Luncheon

Colleton River Club

December 4

WIP Holiday Party

Port Royal Golf and Racquet Club

Ladies, if you RSVP “yes” to an event but can no longer attend, please notify the host or organizer. This allows waitlisted members to join and respects the time and effort put into planning. Thank you!

A Letter from Your WIP Chair

Dear Philanthropic Ladies,

As we close our year to take a summer break, it is a suitable time to reflect on the impact that Women in Philanthropy has in our community. I am going to make this personal, as I close my tenure as your Chair. As I thought about this entire experience, I am reminded of what a joy it has been.

Beginning in July of 2022, we have increased our WIP Fund, the endowment fund, from approximately $1.2M to $1.4M currently. We also have the $550K Dr. Juliann Bluitt Foster Memorial Fund available for our grantmaking. Since its inception, WIP has provided $1,120,120 in grants to local nonprofit organizations, with $405,120 in these three years. This would not have been possible without the work that Elizabeth Loda, and the Advisory Board at that time. did to rebuild our membership following the impact of COVID. That work set the urgency to focus on growing our membership.

And why is that so important? Because WIP members are the lifeblood of our philanthropy. To accomplish the rebuilding, we have had numerous welcoming events to invite like-minded women to learn more about WIP and hopefully become members. As we hear from new members, and it was reinforced in our surveys, friends inviting friends is key to new membership. We have also had many orientation events. These are for small groups of new members, where they learn more about WIP and share information about themselves. The common experiences are always a fun outcome.

Also in this time, we have experienced more member engagement in committees, Grants in Action educational activities, webinars, surveys, and unique events. As we all know, engagement often translates into long-term commitment to an organization.

We also had the opportunity to celebrate WIP's 20-year milestone with a lovely event at the Coastal Discovery Museum. We are well on our way to our 25^th!

It would be easy to sit back, rest on our laurels, but that is not what has made WIP what it is today. This year, as you are probably aware, we embarked on a multi-year Strategic Plan. We aspire to grow our grantmaking capability, which will be driven by growing our membership and increasing individual contributions. The teams will be working to expand our education component to enhance our members’ understanding of the power of their individual philanthropic giving. There is much more detail on the plan on our website.

A special thank you to our colleagues at the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry. We could not do what we do without your expertise, engagement, and support for our mission.

What can I say about the amazing Advisory Board? This is such a dedicated group of talented and enthusiastic women, and I could write a paragraph of each of them, but I would exceed my word limit! But I am overjoyed to hand-off the WIP Chair position to Dedria Cruden, as she takes over July 1.

Best to you all, and best to Women in Philanthropy.

Sincerely,

Lesley

Lesley Gilbert

Advisory Board Chair, 2022-25

Women in Philanthropy

lcg1687@aol.com

Membership Overview

The Membership Committee continues to welcome new women into the WIP family! Eight new members attended the Orientation on June 23, and we are hosting another group on June 30.

This summer, the Membership Committee is working on Goals 2 and 3 of the Strategic Plan, along with a few other WIP members who are joining us for this special project.

Please continue to share the WIP story with your friends and neighbors. Directing them to the WIP page on the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry website is a good way to show them what WIP does and how to become a member. We look forward to sending new members "Welcome emails" and letting them know about our next orientation, which will be held later this summer.

The New Member Orientation photo above, from left to right: Margery Mitchell, Barbara Terreri, Laura Levine, Patti Elmes, Jean Slutsky, Kathy Mills, Brooke Peck, Cindy Reedy.

How Women Change The World:

K. Lisa Yang

Supporting Scientific Research

Students at the nation’s top universities may be familiar with the name K. Lisa Yang, because it adorns science centers at Harvard, MIT, and Cornell. The retired investment banker, who donated a total of $74.5 million last year, has become a major funder of academic research aimed at preserving the planet’s ecosystems and helping people who are physically or cognitively disabled.

In February, she gifted Harvard University $30 million to set up a Brain-Body Center that would function as a sister to the one she established at MIT in 2022. And in 2024, she donated $35 million to endow a wildlife health center at Cornell and $28 million to launch an engineering and research center at MIT—the latest piece in a $200 million six-center research collective she started in 2017 with the Center for Autism Research (cofounded with her ex-husband Hock E. Tan).

“The things that we're most passionate about are the things that touch our own lives,” says Yang, who has two children on the autism spectrum.

Her research investments, which span neuroscience, therapeutics, computational modeling, and bionics, are already paying off. Her Center for Bionics at MIT is developing a promising new type of prosthesis controlled by the brain. And in February, the first human clinical trials began on a gene therapy to reverse a debilitating kind of autism caused by a gene mutation, which her Center for Autism Research helped support. Previous tests in primates restored cognitive, behavioral, and motor functions with no side effects, Yang says.

“That’s a really big deal and one of the things I’m very proud of,” Yang says.

Please remember Women in Philanthropy when you update your wills and estate planning documents.

Women in Philanthropy is a Fund of

Community Foundation of the Lowcountry