Bring on the professionals

First I must say here that none of this would have happened had my employer, The Longmont Community Foundation (LCF), not committed to support this endeavor and in a very big way. They agreed to pay my salary and also to house A Woman’s Work and be the 501 c3 which we would operate under. We got the blessing of  The Denver Foundation who is the parent organization to the LCF. So, had the board of LCF not said yes to this – we would probably not have done it or at least not be where we are today.

Back then we knew that we needed help to decide who would receive the dollars we had decided we could raise. We had all served on boards and commissions and committees and knew that our community was filled with really competent professionals in the non-profit arena. What we didn’t know was that they were so used to paperwork that our dream seemed unfathomable to them. As Director of The Longmont Community Foundation, I had the privilege of working with many non-profits so decided to talk to Directors I admired and knew would be straight with us. First, they applauded the idea as they knew only too well that many many women fell through the cracks because of timing or because they had restrictions on how they could help them. They acknowledged, for instance, that they would not have the money or authority to fund new locks and doors for a house where the ex-husband broke in.

Here is where I will spring a surprise on us…we thought in our own start up position that we would be funding “domestic abuse” victims in a big way. Didn’t happen! But I will get to that as this goes along.

Anyway, we did get what we thought was enough encouragement from some very reputable non-profit people that there was a need for this kind of program in our area. So we decided to raise the money – we would aim for getting 100 women to give $100 in 100 days…